Guild Wars 2

It’s like the ringer cars that used to be put into demolition derby with heavy ballasting and armor, to amuse the crowd by bashing everything in sight.

-edit- OK it isn’t that bad.. but you need strong language to even get a glance it seems.

I’m not liking Stronghold. I got sick of WvW and took up PvP instead. Stronghold is a mini wvw… awwwww I can’t get away.

This is something I’ll play occasionally. I will say that it’s much better adjusted compared to the last stronghold beta.

-edit- I love the idea of WvW with even teams

The reaper is proving too tanky in match after match. In this regard there’s another thread that suggests why. Unrelenting Assault is my current rug burn.

The same way you counter bp > hs. It’s not like that stealth is free, it costs initiative. If this were pre – revealed I’d agree it was an issue. That’s not the case.

This is a learn to play situation.

Welcome to the Mesmer/Thief world. Still, with that pull and huge damage and major tankiness…

I don’t think any build should be basically immune to another. Reaper is close to immune to condition Mesmer. That’s not appropriate especially considering the damage output.

Have you played the new spec? The dodges and evades are relatively slow and it’s still only a very brief stealth that will be overwritten a lot of the time by revealed debuff.

I think the worry about this is a non issue.

That doesn’t really make sense. To have stealth you need a blast or leap finisher into a dark field.

So “if” an evade is a leap finisher ( I didn’t check ) you’d have to bp > swap to staff > leap. That’s a long combo for not much stealth.. a couple of seconds at the cost of being stuck in staff with two skills on cd.

This is not unfair.

They tried “pure” PvP. It is called “courtyard” and I dislike it intensely.

This thread started with a complaint about moa and chronomancers. The issue of moa has been endlessly debated and it’s been nerfed down and watered down by being given to engineers as well.

In theory could two Chronomancers moa 4 people in rapid succession? Yes, but it would require the targets to cooperate, stay in range, not interrupt and not dodge or block for four very long animations.

If four team members stand still with there mouths agape and let this happen to them, they probably deserve it.

How about some nice illusion mode swapping with near instant condi cleanse, major regeneration and buffed dps? D/D Mesmer inc!

It clearly doesn’t fit. The reason is that it is too tanky. I literally can’t touch the necro elite specs. It heals faster than guardians.. that fits how?

wrong name, oops

uhm.. I said herald, not revenant. I’m talking about the melee necro.

Actually altruistic healing is quite limited since it’s procc’d by healing others. So the icd is effectively the cd of your shouts.

So that’s not a valid argument.

I can see how it works, it has nearly unbeatable heal and sustain.

+1 Herald is way too tanky. I’m hardly denting them on condi Mesmer. It’s like the bad old days with warriors I couldn’t hope to hurt.

This is something I’d enjoy occasionally. Please allow opt out. I have to say, starting in the bar was far cooler. I’d probably actually queue for this more often with the bar as a spawn area.

The game has been adjusted so the fights don’t end quickly. This match went into overtime, GG on the adjustments, ANET.

Wow ANET, spot on. This is fun to play and very thief like. It has some of the old Assassin in it too with the strikes that stack. I especially like [Bandit’s Defense] it makes sense and npc Bandits already use it. It is kinda Robin Hood, but that’s not a bad thing.

(though it makes me worry that I’ll see Rangers with Bonetti’s Defense all over PvP. That is also used by NPC bandits)

I spec’d as Daredevil with Unhindered Combatant, Impacting Disruption and Weakening strikes. Also set up as a venom share thief with potent poisons and venomous aura.

Venom Share is one of the least appreciated builds in the game, IMO.

It didn’t feel over powered though it could have, with unhindered combatant. GG and nice work.

Moa or as it’s now called, [Signet of Humility], is dodgeable and if I’m not mistaken it’s also blockable. There is a long and obvious windup animation and it’s on one of the longest CD’s out there.

As to Chronomancers using multiple Moa… yes that’s true, but the continuum shift required to do that burns a lot of resources and can’t be done very often.

Sure, you could moa 4 enemies with two chronomancers if you burned up nearly all the resources of both chronomancers and the enemies all failed to dodge or block.

Kind of like walking repeatedly through a burn guard’s fire circle, come to think of it…

Ok, in response to that; I find Chronomancer interesting.

This close to the long-awaited release of HoT I doubt that anything short of a nuke would implement concept level changes to Elite Specializations. There simply isn’t enough time. My guess is that Ranger elite is still very much in flux as are others.. making it a race to release day.

In fact, that is part of the fun of GW1; Understanding the various skills and seeing how they can be used and combined. Soul Barbs + Life Siphon as a simple example.

No nerfs have been announced, as far as I know. Besides Ele is pretty strong in WvW as a siege fighter.

In any case, I think you’re going about this with the wrong priorities. A couple of years ago, there were gankers that could run around solo and assassinate. That’s not so much the case any more. There aren’t any builds that are really outlandishly powerful like the once unbeatable hambow or the corruption rune condi bleed warrior.

Choose a class because you like to play it. I main Mesmer and Thief and have done so for years despite the limitations of those classes because I like the class concepts

And again, WvW is mostly about zerging.. pretty much any class will fly in a situation like that.

-edit- Assassin, Dervish and Ritualist seem to have made it into GW2 though. They are now called “Daredevil”, “Herald” and “Revenant” respectively.

d/d ele, hands down. You can charge into a zerg with a better than even chance of survival on that build.

@ronpierce

First, I don’t agree. In ranked PvP, Mesmer is at least as challenging to play as any other class.

Second; There is an odd fashion among certain Mesmer players to ask for nerfs and try to make the class underpowered. I suppose this stems from pride in those of us who suffered for years being underpowered and almost a guaranteed kill for a thief.

That fashion does the class a huge disservice

Lyssa knows, ANET needs no encouragement at all to nerf Mesmer. I realize that it’s fun to be an iconoclast and to call for nerfs to make the class harder , ( and thereby increase the prestige of winning as a Mesmer ), but it’s really not appropriate.

-edit- There also seems to be a group that believes in asking for nerfs as a defensive measure. They fear that if we should ever start doing well, we’ll be nerfed into the ground.

Having newly begun to play GW1 from GW2 as a starting point;

I really like the team aspect of gw1. GW2 toons are superheroes who don’t need support, more often than not. That’s probably the main reason Monks didn’t make it into GW2.

That’s a mistake from my POV. A “team” of 5 individualists is a far cry from a gw1 team that relies on each other to do their respective jobs.

Granted, that meant needing npc henchies, but I don’t think that’s such a bad thing either.

If I were at the helm, I’d be looking for ways to make players interdependant.

@ronpierce

Any toon is easy to play in pve and relatively easy to play generally. What’s harder is to play it well.

Mesmer is a very active class that requires focus to play well. Being the Ranger advocate that you are, I’m not surprised to hear you asking for Mesmer nerfs. I also note that rangers have huge spike damage and CC. Nerf that longbow and pet.

I agree, Cele necro is a beast. As to thieves no longer 1 shotting Mesmers… thanks be to Lyssa and the devs.

-edit- I think ANET should consider tiers of dishonor. If someone is being a kitten for a couple matches, say 30 minute timeout.

Progressing it that way will get the player’s attention without being excessively harsh. Punishing poor sports harshly will make them worse sports and ultimately reduce the pvp population.

PvP is fun for me, (most of the time.)

I don’t see many people afk or logging out in ranked.

I got dishonored for dc’ing and really was fairly kittened off about it.

Dishonor needs to be based on player complaints, not automated. That’s a pretty big slap and it shouldn’t happen unless there’s a real reason.

I like the heavy condition model far better than the Berserker insta kill one. It involves more strategy and thinking than just being the first to get the burst combo off.

It also tends to make a place for a kinda-healer/condi remover role.

A d/d Ele will fall to sustained conditions ( especially confusion ) and stuns. In truth I worry more about necros in a match.

I’ll agree that d/d ele needs a tone down.. just increase the element swap time cooldowns a bit, et voila’

It really isn’t as crazy as people make it out to be. On the other hand, it does seem to require a major freakout to get attention focused on a problem.

Again, I think it’s probably a very interesting idea. I also think that it would be difficult and resource consuming to code. It already exists in the system which reduces it’s appeal by quite a bit.

A human run and administered tournament is one thing. Automated competition is quite another.

Fast? well… I strongly suspect that the PvP population is low enough that the system is forced to choose between relatively balanced matches and speed.

I think a 2v2 or 3v3 system would not likely improve that by much. Both options have bad points but ANET seems to have chosen better matchmaking over speed.

I for one think that’s a good choice.

@ RonPierce

If that’s the case… I don’t see an issue. You are asking for something that already exists. Illogical.

-edit- Is it possible that ANET sponsors such tournaments because setting them up as an automated part of PvP would be too much of a hassle? I’m being a tad sarcastic, but my point is real.

agreed +1. 15 chars

That sounds rather complex and it would entail a battle over every “balancing” with exclusions and rules. You’re talking about a lot of extra code to check those things.

I suggest to you that organizing such a tournament might work. I’d come give it a try. Disclosure; I am quite fond of [Signet of Humility].

-edit- if you decide to organize a tourney, let me know.. I’ll help if I can.

As to making it a normal mode, I think the idea is a non starter. It doesn’t create something new enough to justify it and it would involve the balance team in a whole new wave of issues.

The Six know that balancing is a big enough problem as it is.

I like that better. Still, there would be serious balance issues and you can already do this in custom servers. So creating it wouldn’t provide much that isn’t already there.

Admittedly, you don’t get rewarded for dueling. The next problem becomes; how do you reward such a match? It’s not the same situation or difficulty as a 5v5.

No, thanks. A team of 3 rangers ( for example ) would have nearly perma CC and long term machine gun dps.

This is a nightmare waiting to happen.

@Seifer Thalaen;

I don’t agree. Mesmer is very squishy and most if not all classes have strong condi cleanse available.

As to “Casual Friendly,” may I point out that ANET just made GW2 f2p? Casuals make the game go ’round.

I’m not a casual player. Mesmer is a class you play despite it’s limitations. Yes, the works of Anton Mesmer are on my bookshelf in the current reading section… Yes, I do play both GW1 and GW2.

I liked clone death. Unfortunately a dev died to it. Still, I hold to my three main points;

Please don’t over nerf Mesmer.

Elementalist power can be controlled without major reworks by changing the swap cooldowns.

A d/d Ele will die quickly to confusion if you can sustain it. Daze also kittens the rotation.

I must admit, whenever I hear that the devs are talking about balance I expect my beloved Mesmer to be nerfed very heavily. Please don’t hit Mesmer again. Every time the game is updated I quick look to see if I’ve been crippled.

The way to control Ele power would be to increase the cooldown on Elemental Attunement swaps. This would not require a major rework to any traits.

edit; I can beat the average d/d Ele on Mesmer. Conditions are the key, especially confusion and daze.

Mesmer is by far my favorite class. It takes some getting used to and you’ll take some grief from other PvP players.

Would that really be a bad thing? Granted, Trahearne can be more of a liability than an asset. Henchie/hero management is an interesting mini game in itself.

Like it or not, the grind is a major part of playing GW1 and GW2 albeit with a change of format. I’ve taken to alternating one game with the other while my [Signet of Patience] is on CD.

How about making Heroes and Henchies unlockable in GW2? I’d even pay for a gem store hero.

There’s plenty of precedent for this, as any player of Star Trek Online ( STO ) knows. It would make leveling without traits less painful and make the grind a bit smoother.

Something else that might have been taken into account is that the thief requires one or two lands. Clones seldom survive/hit for a full burst.

All in all I’d say that thief is a bit weaker on burst, but the poison and dark fields probably make up the difference.

I was thinking of GW1. Now add a Tempest Elementalist ( Monk ) to your Bunker Guardian + Glassy warrior combo. See where that might lead?

Maybe, just maybe.. ANET is trying to steer back toward cooperative play?

Reading the forums and interacting on some topics got me thinking.

It looks like the Tempest could be an amazing healer, if protected by other players.

The Berserker looks like a massive dps burster though I hope anet has the sense to realize that historically berserkers didn’t care at all about defense. That was what made them so scary.

Harness that with a bunker guard and you might have the second coming of The Holy Trinity. This would require a lot of teamwork and GW2 seems to prefer individual super heroes to teamwork.

Still, it’s worth thinking about. Well coordinated, this might be hell on wheels.

I wouldn’t like to see any buff on Ranger. Being farmed from extreme range while being harassed by attack drones isn’t fun. Rangers also have pretty rapid stealth, a speed signet and strong CC.

Well do I remember the rangers laughing in map chat as they insta killed my Mesmer with point blank shot > pet cc > machine gun bow and shouted “l2p.”

No, I’d oppose buffs of any kind to Ranger unless it came with a healthy nerf to the longbow and a reduction in range.

To return to the point though. The modern E (Elementalist) is dependant on rotations.

It stands to reason then that ANET could adjust E power by the simple expedient of making small changes in the CD of the element swaps. My guess is that changes in these cds as small as 1-2 tenths of a second might make a noticeable difference.

This would have the advantage that it would not require major reworks of skills or traits.

I’m not sure about the “Holy Trinity” idea. There is certainly much more teamwork in GW1. There is also much more strategy and I would say, thought involved in playing. That applies when playing with a human team or “henchies.”

As to GW1 PvP.. I have to plead low experience. The fact that many skills require that you not move gives things a very different feel. I’d say that that the skill level required in GW1 PvP is higher than that of GW2.

I love the storytelling and lore in GW1. GW2 has also had moments of brilliance in the story.

As to the modern E; They aren’t impenetrable. They are quite strong. Sustained conditions (especially confusion ), stuns and knocks all do a good job of trashing the rotation. Once you break the stride, you break the ele.