Guild Wars 2

I still haven’t found my win streak, but I’m at exactly 50% with 21 for 42 ranked matches, on core PU Mesmer.

It’s kinda back to the bad old days. A DD thief will kill me nearly instantly. So will a well played Chronomancer or Reaper. I don’t lose all of those though.

DH, War and Ele all have to make serious mistakes to lose to this build. I +1 or hit and run and decap.

Still, I feel a bit more like I’m playing a Mesmer and that’s good. If ANET would tone down the elite specs some.. I could see core specs playing successfully.

I’m currently running just under 46% wins on core PU Mesmer. That’s an improvement over last season, I think. Gonna keep pushing.

There’s a sticky’d thread for that above. “Stuck in a PvP match.”

I’d like to be on a win streak. I get stacked game after stacked game.. I have no trouble whatever finding a loss streak. 35 games and 16 wins for a 45.7% win rate. I’m seeing players from the middle of the next division up in my matches.

I’d like to know if ANET has returned to the s2-s3 game stacking.

Please add a small Scepter. The Bo staff skin would make an outstanding “magic wand.”
Only the Princess Wand skin is small enough in game that I don’t feel I’m wielding a cricket bat.

I’d pay gems for such a skin.

I wonder: Is anet continuing the policy of stacked matches, hoping to please the upper division players?

I feel that many of the weapons and utility items available are significantly oversized.

Currently my leveling test character is running the Princess Wand. Pretty much all of the scepters ( and other weapons ) feel too big.

I’ll pay for a shrinker or some items that are closer to realistic size. I’m willing to lose some of the showyness and LoD.

TLDR Please provide some weapons that are closer to normal scale.

SUGGESTION: a “magician’s wand.” it could even use the same skin as the bo staff. Just shrink it and call it a wand. A chaos cane ala’ GW1 would be great also.

The winning team is already encouraged to win by as much as possible. That’s one of the big things that turns people off PvP.

Spawn camping, calling out “gg ez” in map chat…. and people wonder why PvP has the reputation it does. It’s because of the “sportsmanship.”

Yeah I’m having one of those losing days and it’s really kittening me off. I keep trying to tell myself it will balance out.. but I don’t honestly believe it.

Agreed, with a side of hash browns please.

DeceiverX.8361:

Spartacus.3192:

The problem is that from a psychology point of view. ANET gave super easy rewards in Season 5 to encourage PVE players into PVP. Then this season they went overboard with the amount of grind necessary to get the gear. Since PVE players by definition can get ascended gear by other means it is now easier and most likely more fun for PVE players to get their ascended gear in their preferred game mode.

May as well be in WvW with its super slow rewards.

Which begs the question as to why PvP has a population issue.

It all comes down to gameplay and general balance. Yes, the meta might be balanced, but a strict majority of players aren’t going to prefer playing the meta.

Most people would just rather not play than play something they don’t enjoy playing.

~snipped for brevity~

Both of these ideas are headed in the right direction. Lack of rewards means fewer PvE players. The narrowing of the builds is a factor in reducing the fun.

Teammates, (on other classes,) tell me that I got my rotation “wrong.” Obviously, as a Mesmer I "should " have done x,y and then z.

Playing a core build Mesmer this season is surprising some folks. I’m currently @ exactly 50% win/loss. At least it feels more like a Mesmer.

Unfortunately, ANET seems to be driving toward single builds, at least in PvP, for each class.

Fluffball.8307:

Ithilwen.1529:

Though, it’s interesting that you bring this up. It is why I have argued that the game needs to be more about strategy and less “street fighter 5” style reaction time gaming.

Just because you (and I) are not as fast as kids doesn’t mean we need to change the fast exciting pace of the game to be more turn-based-strategy.

My favorite hobby is boxing, and just because I’m not as fast anymore doesn’t mean they should change the exciting nature of boxing to be more about choosing the correct counterpunch than actually executing the counter.

No, but it does mean you should be matched against appropriate opponents. No one goes for the light-heavyweight title in there first month and there’s a reason for that.

GW1 was and is much more about choosing the best counter punch. I’d like to see GW2 move in that direction.. not that it needs to be slowed excessively. I think it needs to be about more than JUST reaction time though.

Drakortha.6974:

Fluffball.8307:

Drakortha.6974:

No, the matches are bad. That’s the problem. I am one team member out of five, I can’t do all the lifting myself.

If you’re really losing nearly every match then you’re the only thing in common. Anything below 50% and you should start looking at yourself as the cause. 40% might be bad luck, 10% means you are the cause.

It’s at least 40%. And I’ve played enough PVP to know these are just bad. (almost 3500 matches)

I have a bit over 6k matches over my two accounts. Some matches are a dead loss when they begin. Several seasons of deliberately stacked matches haven’t helped my attitude either.

As to “just bad,” the matchmaker exists to match people of similar skill. So, if it is working properly, no one should be in a position of losing constantly. Granted, that’s not totally realistic in practice.

Still, the matchmaking seems better this season over the long run, so far.

I had thought that the matchmaker was working well. Now I’m seeing the same old stacks.
This is depressing. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

I’m nearly twice that age limit. Oddly enough, I’m not doing that badly so far this season,(knock on wood. )

Though, it’s interesting that you bring this up. It is why I have argued that the game needs to be more about strategy and less “street fighter 5” style reaction time gaming.

Rodzynald.5897:

The thing is that PvE players are welcomed into ranked games but they are not taught more about what ranked is, it’s just a free farm and just a different button in the PvP interface. There should be some more info, some tutorials a guide to ranked, some more tips on how to fight even when entering HoTM there should be some tips displayed. If one tries to get into ranked a warning pop up that this is competetive and its serious and not some Mary Sue-sque gameplay like back at unranked.
I think that education and information is the key, if people try to improve, they will get better but they need to see more.
If this state stays as it is now, it might turn out later that quality competitive won’t really go extinct, but will be really, really of low quality.

But in the end of the day, I see that gold, platinum and legendary appears to have normal quality of matches and when I look back at silver and bronze I just see a cluster of PvE players for daily and baddies who can’t swallow the truth that they are not as good as they think they are.

I think a major problem is that PvP is entirely too serious. This leads to trolling and general toxicity.

Let’s face it, GW 2 is really not set up to be an arcade game. It needs to be about more than learning the “combos,” ( as we used to call them when I competed in the arcades,) and reaction time/connection speed.

There’s not any money in it at the moment and I think that’s a good thing. Perhaps we can re-focus on “sport.”

In GW1, skills are pretty much exclusive. Many things can only be done by one specific class. Yes, of course you multiclass.

I think that less spread of skills in general would be a great thing for GW2. It would help each class maintain an identity.

Update: I went and played my placement matches on core PU Mesmer. won 4 and lost 6, most of them close. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have done a lot better on chrono.

Is core PU a reasonable build for PvP? Not really. I win some 1v1 and have some mobility but the lack of alacrity and slow shatters are huge hindrances.

Still, I want to play a Mesmer, not a warrior in light armor. I’ll soldier on and see if I can find a niche somewhere.

Against my better judgement, I took the plunge and did my placement matches. I lost 6 and won 4. Most were actually pretty close.

I played a core Mesmer. The light armored warrior that is Chronomancer doesn’t appeal to me at the moment.

So, I’m perhaps a bit below average. Not bad for playing against people who are sometimes 25+ years younger in a video game.

So, what’s my point? Well two of them, really.

The matchmaker actually worked reasonably well this time. Granted, this is a rather small sample and I played in the early a.m. Nevertheless, the matches were reasonably good. Well done, anet.

Why then do I find myself spending more and more time in GW1 and in GW2 PvE? The PvP rewards are ample and I enjoy playing.

Yet, I hate the person I become when I log into HoTM. It’s easy to be a good sport when you win.

Here’s hoping ANET continues toward more even games.

The idea that one can “stealth up” and leave after inflicting a condition is pure myth.

Long ago… a condi war could inflict bleeds that would kill without much chance of escape. They could them run away with fair confidence that the enemy would die.

That was a long time ago and with the amount of cleanse available it’s no longer true.

Exedore.6320:

@Ithilwen

Your argument makes no sense and is factually inaccurate.

First, OW is a PC game as well. The character design is the core of the game and had nothing to do it also being on consoles. OW is essentially an iteration of Team Fortress, which has been around for two decades on PCs.

Second, HoT is what dumbed down classes and reduced variety, not balance. HoT elite spec power creep is the opposite of healthy balance. Most HoT elite specs are designed with a specific playstyle in mind, so it’s not surprising that when those elite specs are far better than any core spec, those are the only playstyles which remain.

Third, if you eliminate or reduce class stacking without proper balancing, whiners will just find a new mantra such as, “Our team’s DH sucks, that’s why we lost,” which leads to more toxic teams, “Terrible people like you are why I can’t play the class I want.”

Restricting profession on teams is a bad solution to solving balance.

I didn’t say that OW was a console game. I intended to imply that it is a more arcade game oriented setup. GW2 wasn’t designed or sold as an arcade game.

Yes Hot narrowed the choices, because it was not balanced with the rest of the game. We are more-or – less saying the same thing from different angles.

Removing the class stacking would mitigate the lack of balance to some extent. It would limit the number of people who could play the OP specs. Those who chose to play a stacking spec would have to wait for matches. This would force people to play other setups.

Odokuro.5049:

Remember when Thief had almost exclusive rights to Stealth mechanics in this game, then, BAM, everyone and their grandma had some skill/ability/spell that gave them stealth and attacks while entering/leaving stealth. I’m not surprised that they are starting to do it with other classes no matter if its from a spec or not.

I agree. I think anet is taking the wrong path by doing this though.

Sadly, the trend has been to simplify each class. That’s why we have more-or-less one build per class in pvp.

I think that hurts the game and drives it toward an OW style. The issue with that is that GW2 wasn’t designed to be a console game. Trying to make it one will damage it in the process.

Balance is the root problem. The balance issue leads to class stacking. Forcing a single class per team would at least partly mitigate the problem. Players would be forced to run less popular classes in order to get matches.

Crinn.7864:

Kako.1930:

This is by far the worst season. It feels like it’s still the off season lol.

No it’s not. Season 1 was the worst season, and it’s gotten better every season since then.

People just being salty that rating is merit based now.

I don’t find that ratings are “merit based.”

Duo queue does not reflect the merit of the individuals, in my opinion.

Every season so far has included things along the lines of “smurfing,”, “leader board sniping,” “pay to afk” and the like. To it’s credit, ANET has tried to remedy this.

I have been castigated by an esl player for my objection to smurfing. That player claimed that the practice was honorable and demonstrated skill.

Merit based? I don’t agree.

Why contemplate such a large change of direction? Class balance and matchmaking are the main issues. To do this adds a whole new set of variables… may as well go back to release and start over.

Actually, come to think of it.. I’d prefer that.

As was recently said of the US government: “Don’t mistake motion for progress.”

By your display name, an Ayn Rand fan? I don’t have specific questions so much as I’d like to see it played and/or duel against it.

That way I’d hope to get a better handle on how to play. I realize the meta build is more successful. Still, I’ve been playing quite a bit of GW1 lately and I’d like to play more like that style. It feels more “Mesmerish” to use a common neologism.

In an effort to play more “like a Mesmer,” I’m testing out a PU build in unranked. It’s surprising some people who where expecting the standard chrono. I’ve even won a couple of turns on the dueling servers.

This is not a build I’ve played much. Anyone available to teach it?

PS I’d love to play an interrupt build, but I’m not sure that’s within the realm of reasonable possibility.

Daishi.6027:

Cynz.9437:

My problem is game doesn’t allow me to switch characters in match. So i am stuck with 3 thieves vs 3 DHs…. WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA????

The solution is to make the DH and thief matchup (among many others) more even.

That would be the solution. ANET hasn’t accomplished that.There are two basic paths to making even matches:

Careful balancing of the classes, taking special care to leave out personal biases.

Making all classes similar. We’ve been seeing a strong trend of simplifying and making the classes more and more alike. I think this is to the detriment of the game.

I’m not surprised. Perhaps in a couple of weeks things will improve. I might do placement matches then.

I keep seeing these proposals to radically simplify the game. That isn’t a good path.

Colin had the right idea when he extolled the game’s virtue of not being, “look I swung my sword, look I swung my sword again.”
(paraphrased as I don’t recall the exact quote )

Do the work, fix the issues. Simply discarding things is a path to a spiral dive to destruction.

vesica tempestas.1563:

where are the healing and support sigils?

They are talking about removing them. This is the second coming of the “zerker” meta.

Here’s what I see, Evan.

These sigils, particularly the on-hit ones are meant to burn through defenses and passives.

There are two basic issues with that. First, it’s an attempt to deal with excessive passives and defenses by adding yet another layer. “The crack is still showing! Well, put some more spackle on it.” This addresses the symptom and not the problem.

Second, you’re adding rapidly re-applied conditions. This will increase dps across the board and render condi cleanse mostly useless. Core builds will become even less relevant. Also the skill factor goes down. You’re adding a passive condi apply to auto attack. I find that illogical.

On – hit sigils mean that conditions will be rapidly re-applied. This will make condition cleansing basically useless.

We’ll see an all power dps situation. The damage will be seriously increased for all classes. So we’ll be right back to the old “zerker” meta that ANET was so concerned about changing a year or two ago.

No bunker or condi build is going to withstand constantly applied bleed or what-have-you.

This idea is a step backward, not forward.

Sadly, the likely end result is fixed builds.

Because, on general principal, we need to discourage the trend of simplifying the game. Let the devs fix what’s here, rather than making sweeping changes.

Balance has been an issue with what we have. There’s no reason to believe that a radical change will result in a better situation. Just the opposite, in my opinion.

It’s very late in the game to make a change like this, particularly without some serious testing.

If I wanted a simple and limited game.. I’d buy a gaming console and/or play a moba.

GW2 is emphatically not sold or designed as a 3d arcade game. I realize this would make the devs’ job easier. Going in that direction would severely damage the game in my opinion. After all, there are a number of games out there that already do that genre better.

The community voted for class stacking by default in my opinion.

Locked professions would have allowed ANET to use separate MMR for each class. It would also have allowed the matchmaker to choose the class mix for matches. Then people would need to play something other than the flavor-of-the-month class in order to get matches.

The on-hit sigils would permit DPS builds to stack condi as well. A good example: Ranger [Rapid Fire] = multiple heavy hits, stacking vulnerability AND on hit condis. That’s what has been quaintly called an “I win button.”

Perhaps they wouldn’t be large stacks.. but they would be constantly re-applied. Thus condi cleanse would be largely useless.

Adding stacks of condi to DPS builds will make them nigh unstoppable. We’re headed back to the insta gib “zerker” era.

Discarding an unused sigil is the path of least effort. The problem is this: If you add a new and untried entire class of sigils, you are introducing a large number of unknowns.

That more-or-less takes you back to square one in terms of balance. The ripple effects are unknown and potentially devastating.

In my opinion, that is a reckless and unjustified risk.

The wiser path would be to fix the sigils that are not commonly used. The ongoing trend toward simplifying the game risks removing the thing that makes GW2 so compelling, it’s mechanics.

“The masses are kittens.”

Paraphrased attributed to Alexander Hamilton.

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the people discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury…"

Alexander Fraser.

Recent polls have seen players vote in a system that promotes stacking a couple of classes for easy farming.

Another proposal has sigils being changed to cause power AND condi damage at the same time. It is possible that such a move will cause balance issues that will last for months or years.

It will, in the short run, boost a couple of the already strong classes and make farming easier still.

I’m all for the devs accepting feedback. It needs to be tempered with the understanding that people will vote for what they perceive as short term gain.. even if it’s not in there long term interest.

Crinn.7864:

Ithilwen.1529:

Wait! You’re going to give conditions on-hit?

This means, for example, that a warrior can do a massive multi hit dps burst AND inflict stacked conditions at the same time? You’re talking about nuke level damage for War and ranger.

This will more or less turbo charge damage. That’s precisely the opposite of what we need.

I’m sure that 1 extra bleed stack is going to lead to a extinction event.

Yes but quite a few builds can hit multiple times in a burst. The burst was already a potential insta-kill. Then you add a stack of condi on top of it.

I remember when the “meta” was to sneak up on somebody and land your zerker burst before they could. We seem to be headed back that way.

PSA to ANET: Not everyone wants a muscle memory oriented video game style. GW2’s charm is, in large measure, because it has interesting mechanics. If you push us into moba style reaction time combat… you risk losing that charm.

Sadly, folks voted that way. Had it gone the other way, we could also have had profession MMR.

So, people choose the easiest/most likely to succeed profs knowing they’ll be locked in. It’s gonna be another long season of exploiting and farming.

I question the wisdom of that.. and of messing with a major balance change in the form of sigils. The current suggestions will allow heavy dps power builds to also stack condis. This will effectively narrow the “meta” even further.

Of course, I’m certain the balance team would have an easier time if Thief, Mesmer, Ele and Necro were pretty much relegated to t3 at best. In effect, I see us heading that way.. with power burst warrior also stacking bleed (for example.)

OriOri.8724:

@Ithilwen – GW2 is in the same universe as GW1. It is a continuation of GW1 in that the lore and the universe is the same, and that’s it. Other than that they are fundamentally different games, as evidenced by everything. Combat system. Movement system. Open world system versus districts. Limited and set skills. No dual classes. Not all GW1 classes represented in GW2. Not all GW1 weapon types represented in GW2.

They are not the same game. Just because something was a certain way in GW1 does not mean it needs to be that way in GW2.

First, I’d argue that in fact all GW1 classes are represented to some extent in GW2. HoT added the Ritualist and Dervish.

Having said that, I am not arguing that GW2 must be the same as GW1. What I’m saying is that I believe GW2 could improve by emulating GW1 in some areas.

With casting times reduced a bit, my GW1 Mesmers could kick butt in GW2 pvp. That’s not because of power level. It’s because of mechanics. I’d hex someone with [Backfire] and a fair percentage of the time they’d kill themselves, ( as an example.)

It’s situational awareness and strategic thinking, rather than just muscle memory. It’s skill rather than reflexes and connection speed.

In my opinion, the GW1 Mesmer class has stronger design. It also has it’s unique place.
In GW2 I feel more and more like just another sword swinger as a Mesmer.

I’m still debating whether or not to play the season.

Wait! You’re going to give conditions on-hit?

This means, for example, that a warrior can do a massive multi hit dps burst AND inflict stacked conditions at the same time? You’re talking about nuke level damage for War and ranger.

This will more or less turbo charge damage. That’s precisely the opposite of what we need.

OriOri.8724:

But this is GW2, not GW1. Eventually people will have to admit that they are 2 different games.

GW2 is a continuation of GW1. I don’t think that ANET has prioritized continuity. Still the games are inextricably linked.

My honest assessment is that the GW1 Mesmer is very well designed and more internally consistent than her GW2 sisters.

I’d love to play a reflect/retaliation/interrupt Mesmer here in GW2.

Perhaps a “Mirage” class will return us to Elona. That would tend to reconnect with GW1.

So, Chronomancer doesn’t have a single thing it can call it’s own.. That’s depressing. I will consider carefully before I buy the next expac.

@Exedore

I’ve seen it in matches, repeatedly. I’ve encountered a player with 25 stacks of bloodlust. this makes them devastating to fight.

Perhaps this is a hack, I don’t honestly know. I have seen it in matches though.

ANET might be trying to clean up the hack by removing the sigil.

I stand by what I said though, they should make the smallest changes possible to avoid ripple effects.

As far as ability giveaways; We really only have one ability that is not at least partly replicated by another class.

That single ability is Continuum Split. I see ANET allowing some kind of double skill use on Engineer or Revenant in the near future.

You know? The main problem with on-kill sigils is the stacks. I see players with 25 stacks of corruption or bloodlust. That tells me that they pre stack in Hotm.

Simple solution? Remove the stacks upon entering a pvp map. This is a legal “cheat” but it is easy to resolve. Truthfully, I haven’t tried stacking in this way because I assumed ANET wouldn’t permit a clear edge like that in a match… Perhaps my faith is misplaced.

ANET doesn’t need to be heavy handed, removing whole categories of amulets etc. Such things have a ripple effect that makes unexpected balance changes.

In my opinion it would be better to seek the smallest changes that will do the job.

Reaper Alim.4176:

Ithilwen.1529:

I asserted that toons should be allowed to dual class. I should have added that I meant core classes. GW1 featured this system.

This would tend to bring core professions roughly to the level of HoT classes. That’s the only practical method I see for making the two equivalent.

As to PvP generally; (without disrespect) My impression is that ANET has followed a kind of Social Darwinist idea. This concept is neatly summed up in the “l2p” culture. Basically, “if you’re having trouble it is because you are lazy and/or lack skill.”

Social Darwinism was popular among the social elite of the late 1800’s. It was not particularly successful. I do not think it will be successful in the context of GW2.

Nah I believe is quite the opposite. I mean just look at the PvP game play. Compared to other PvP game play. The excuse of “GW2 is MMORPG and not a PvP MOBA” is a lazy excuse that goes against what you call “Social Darwinism”.

You want to talk about Social Darwinism. Then you need to look towards games like DoTA, LoL, Smite, CS:GO, and even Overwatch. Those games have Social Darwinism. GW2 has the opposite of that. And thus because of that fact. We had/have a lot of upper tier’ed and some middle tier’ed level PvP players leaving in mass. Leaving only the casual PvPers [Which now I myself fits into this bracket since Season 3] , and the rewards hungry PvEers.

snipped for brevity

If that is the case, then we have a big chance here. Some of the more egregious “l2p” types have moved on. That means the next generation has room to grow.

We have a chance to grow a new community from those that are here.

The richness of GW2 is kinda lost when it’s all about muscle memory and reaction time. We would be better served with a strategic game.