Guild Wars 2

Thanks, Eurantien. You bring glass full power ranger to a much higher level, for sure.

I see your point. I guess I am not good enough that I am riding right on the edge where losing 800 damage changes my effectiveness much. Seriously. The survivability and gain of “thinking time” helps me, personally.

I’ve tried full glass. When I can free cast it feels godly. But just one decently played thief who decides to come for me and I cannot survive those bursts, particularly the ones that I cannot see coming.

Normally I am spending a lot of time in pugs as full glass Zerker, running; not pew-pewing. With some bark skin and SotF and condis, I last a lot longer and sometimes even down the thief.

In determining how well you did on a match, the only thing that matters is:

“How many points, net, did your actions add for your team”?

It’s not easy to calculate, and sometimes takes a little deeper thought than, “I helped ‘kill’ a lot of people and send them back to their base for about a minute each”.

Sometimes you add more net points by harassing/delaying a couple of enemies and NOT killing either one of them if the big important fight is close to their respawn point.

I’ve been thinking that when comparing two amulets and their effect on a skill’s DPS…often the difference in damage is less than 1/4 of one shot’s worth of damage. For example, the “high” damage amulet is 3800, and the “lower” damage amulet is 3000.

800 damage can be more than “made up for” if you are able to take just one extra shot along the line of the fight due to gaining better defense, or toughness, or another ability. Or take 800 less yourself.

Sneakier.9460:

Skullface.7293:

I like the idea of people like you stopping playing lb/gs ranger in PvP. The less we are the better, because the majority can’t play it properly and give bad reputation.

I give up on sPvP,

I wen’t back to my original build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEq0waLL+rQ1ag9gadAUAnN7BeECBXbRBbqA-TJBFwACuEA62foaZAAPBAA

This works for sPvP.

I was QQ’ing this one doesn’t do kitten!: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEq0waLL+rQ1ag+ga9DEAjdvfg7/+BFspC-TJBFwACuEA62foaZAAPBAA

Both are the same build.

Thanks for the advice! It has helped.

Here is my latest experience in using my now celestial hybrid build (that was further polished up a bit by Tragic for me). Even though score is a weak indicator, getting this high means you are doing something right for the team (I believe it was 5×5 and someone left at the screenshot):

I always get lost when a person runs all their thoughts together and only uses two periods in the whole thing. Is this a texting thing?

I seem to be on a stronger team when I am above the middle position. Usually I am in the middle and my name appears as my team’s name.

Cynz.9437:

as posted on other threads: once you reach above 50% win rate the game tries to bring you back to 50% and stacks all odds against you… so no matter in what tier you would fight, you would alway experience same effect

only way to counter is: make a full group of top players, put them in ts and farm everyone~

I think this is pretty much true.

If you win a lot, you will be balanced back to a 50% win rate. So as a solo player, enjoy the process==>the individual battles; forget about being a winner in a majority of your games.

I suspect higher MMR players tend to queue with other high MMR players they have met and formed friendships with. Higher MMR solo may, sadly, become “carriers” for lower MMR players.

Tragic, thanks. Sending a PM.

Tragic P.,

I did indeed read that thread by Jcbroe, and that is where I got the idea.

That was one great thread. One of the best I have seen on the forums.

But it also became obvious to me:

1) How complex it is to find the optimal build for a given profession and strategy. I mean, this was just LB Ranger!

2) That you really have to discern who in a thread knows what they are talking about, and who drops in with strong opinions based on little apparent evidence. Tragic, you and the OP and a couple others seemed to really know what you were talking about. Some others seemed to be just chiming in confidently without facts or compelling logic. (In typical forum fashion! . One can easily be misled. )

I have changed my build to a celestial build that retains a pretty good LB DPS while having solid melee with survival of the fittest that deals 1400 condition damage. I like axe/dagger. Just a style I like as I have never gotten comfortable with the sword. I know a lot of people like the torch, but better players tend to dance outside it.

It is fun to surprise them when they come for the “glass LB Ranger” and find I am not easy to take on.

Sarlack.4096:

Pre Expansion Build

Idea was simply to hit some baseline offense and must haves as follows.

Thresholds I wanted were 2500 Power (I do with stacks) 50% (70% under Fury) Crit Rate and 200% Crit Damage, “perma” Fury and MASSIVE cripple and immobilize for control, 2 Stun breaks, good controlled condi clear and movement speed without being too glassy ; )

You can generate more 50+ sec of immob per minute under optimal conditions and near perma Fury

I’m having a blast with it so figured I would share.

http://tinyurl.com/kcpu2ps

Kalo

Sounds fun!

When playing a LB Power Ranger, it can be tough to get to your team to support them if you are caught on the way.

When you die in sPvP, what procedure to you follow leaving the base to get back to the action?

Do you just run to the high ground to an important spot and look and wait for action to come near you?

Iris Ng.9845:

Venom share thief for tourney? Starting at about 2:32:00

http://www.twitch.tv/gamewithstorm/c/6490370

Interesting!

style.6173:

How many threads about matchmaking do we need until ANET does something? Even the old system was better than what we have now.

ANet can’t do anything about a small number of players in the “pool” waiting for a good match, when there just isn’t one, for everybody.

Magira.6390:

I play all 8 classes regularly and most solo. 7 are close together. By far the best Win% has my Power Ranger, which is almost 20% more than any other.

1) Do you play with a regular team? Or just PUGs?

2) How do you handle being long range “insta stolen” and snared by thieves?

Has anyone had success as a team-buff thief using venom sharing?

I realize most people as a thief want to be fast, crafty assassins.

But if venom share is bad, what exactly is weak about it?

Everyone with experience knows that thief is hard to play against competent players.

These guys saying it is easy are just scamming you, or are just trying to convince you that they are super talented.

Doomdesire.9365:

Nothing changed. I don’t think Anet is wanting to make big balance changes because HoT is going to be released soon enough and that in itself should mean some big balance changes from new specializations and whatnot.

I am not expecting Hot for at least 6 months, probably 11 months. This is ArenaNet. They had to announce it because of PAX, not because it is nearly ready to ship.

Erwin.5603:

If you can’t tell, then it’s you. If you can tell, you are most likely wrong and it’s still you.

See, this is the standard PvP Forum answer. Always somebody saying this to shoot you down. It’s the “PvP forum” after all, right?

Don’t pay attention to it. The matchmaking is almost nonexistent now when there are few people queuing. And the PvP population is way down this week.

If your MMR has a low deviation score, it is hard to budge. The deviation number is a “confidence” rating and tells the system not to change the MMR much if it is pretty confident in the MMR.

It exists to prevent random bad luck or good luck from swinging your MMR around.

PvP Forum Rule: Anytime you ask on the forum if your losses are due to you, or to the team, you will be told that its you, and you basically suck and need to get better.

Added bonus: people will tell you they never have your problems, implying they are better than you are.

I have seen it many many many times over the years.

Count on it, if you ask this question.

Also, they commonly reason that you are the only thing that doesn’t change, so therefore it has to be you. (Implying that if you were good, you would then win all your matches. Every one of them.)

I disagree that mesmer is a good “carry class”.

You guys are discounting the possibility that he and the same people are playing the same team over and over in a low population time of day.

The result won’t change.

glock.6590:

20 games in a row is obviously your fault . Its impossible to lose that many games in a row unless you are doomed or something.

No, I disagree. You make it sound like it’s all him because he didn’t carry them. He is one of five.

I think it’s most likely a combination of the class he is playing (a non-carry class), what time of day, and a low population doing PvP, meaning there is no real matchmaking going on, especially at off hours.

He sounds like he knows what he is doing. But I will agree that to carry you have to have a tanky class played really well to make an impact. It’s harder than it looks.

I suspect the PvP population of more experienced players has dropped and you are being teamed with new people who have just bought the game.

I suspect the release date will be Christmas 2015. Maybe be pushed to early 2016.

Seems like they are moving on a League of Legends direction from here on out.

I stopped looking at mine when it hit 20%.

Another point: if you go heavy conditions, you can still be quite powerful, and useful in team fights after your minions die. And you can use one slot for a boons-to-conditions ability instead of one of the minions. Remember, minions still hit just as hard regardless of your power or crit rating.

I’ve seen good players contribute and not get the pew-pew points. But I saw how much they helped.

uberkingkong,

I disagree. I have contributed a lot and had low points. I have saved people and prevent points from getting flipped. But the big points come from pew-pew tagging.

Zaxares.5419,

Yes, I discovered hybrid condi/minion power and it can be devastating.

Thanks for the tips about the bugs. I found I can sometimes prompt the elite minion to attack if I use one of the other minion’s active buttons.

Separate MMR for Unranked.

I was playing Alien Commander the MM yesterday. My pure condi necro is The Alien.

They are always green or grey Sylvaris with space alien looks.

My own backstory explanation is that they are not using dark magic, but rather an advanced form of weapon from outer space that people mistake for magic.

Kako.1930:

Lol, just play what you enjoy and ignore the haters. If you get good at it, people will eventually be saying stuff like “Wow, you’re pretty good for a minion master.” It’s not like you’ll play something you don’t enjoy to its full potential, anyways, right?

If you play something you don’t enjoy, you won’t be motivated to stick with it and get good at it, so don’t bother with it. Also, if minion masters were really as terrible as everyone makes them out to be, you wouldn’t enjoy playing it because you’d just be getting endlessly crushed without being able to benefit your team at all.

Sure, it might not be the best, most optimized build for conquest with every team matchup in the game, but that doesn’t mean it’s not good for anything, and if you’re having fun then that’s all that matters because that’s what you paid for. :P

Yes, there is no denying that I died very little and held points against more than one for several minutes at a time, making it 4×3 in my team’s favor on other parts of the map.

I was using the warhorn so I could run decaps.

ItIsFinished.9462:

Dueling
Very simple. Select another player. Right click their portrait, click Request Duel. You also have the option to “Turn off all duel requests”.

When the duel initiates, a 2,000 – 3,000 radius circle is generated. Anything outside the circle is black and white. All other players around you fade out except the person you are dueling. All while a 10 second countdown is flashing at the top of the screen. Whoever gets stomped/dies first loses.

New game modes

• 2vs2’s
• 3vs3’s
• Assault – One team is Defense, the other is Assault.
• Head-on Assault – Both teams try to hold the ONLY point for as along as possible.
• Double Assault – 6 nodes. Once captured it cannot be reversed.

New titles per 500 tourney’s WON
For every 500 tourney’s won, you receive a new title. The reason behind this idea is so that a player can show others how experienced they are.

• 500 tourney’s won = Tournament Tickler
• 1,000 tourney’s won = Tournament Brawler
• 1,500 tourney’s won = New Title
• 2,000 tourney’s won = New Title
• 2,500 tourney’s won = Tournament Legend

Build Templates
Please? Pretty please?? This is long overdue.

As a longtime software engineer, I’d estimate this programming and map creation would require a staff of at least 5 programmers and some QA people for about a year. Maybe half a million dollars overall.

And PvP generates little income since there is no subscription.

For a change I got on my old Minion Mancer and did some Unranked matches.

Interestingly, a lot of people did not seem to know how to deal with it. I guess they never see a MM any more.

I had a player “/laugh” at me. But I was 1v2ing a lot and holding my own extremely well.

And I enjoyed playing it. Played properly, I think it can fulfill a role very well. It’ll never be a Cele Ellie, but it can 1v1 well against a non-AOE class.

This comes up regularly.

The dynamics of the game make it really difficult to put an exact number on a player’s contribution to the win. The computer cannot record all the fight dynamics and interactions and cooperations.

The programming does not exist to record things like who helped who when a point was taken. For example, the person who actually stood on the point to “flip it” may have contributed almost nothing to making the flip possible. Two other people may have killed the enemy who was holding it. And all were in the vicinity.

Justin ODell.9517:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Justin ODell.9517:

Hey…. you had a 5% chance of winning. Don’t blame me if you couldn’t pull it off.

Any game where a team has a less than 30% chance of winning shouldn’t even be allowed to happen. I get that all of the other details of matchmaking are important, but match-ups like that are really the ones that result in the worst play experiences.

I literally just had one myself, so yeah, I feel you BLU.

I also agree, but I also have to balance it with queue times. In all likelihood, the other team probably spent around 6-8 minutes in the queue before it would even begin to consider making a match like that.

I am tracking these sort of matches, and am working to figure out exactly what we can do to improve the situation w/o bloating queue times to absurd levels.

This calls for handicapping to make the match interesting. Start the score ticking at 300 for the team with a mere 5% chance of winning

The other team can boast if they still win.

I think it is an idea worth thinking about.

Odyssey.2613:

The only advantage P/P has is nobody uses it. So when paired with the right sigils, traits, and tactics, you can catch people off guard and sometimes in full on panic mode when you engage them.

Yes, I trait for stealth and power. My main goal is mobility to steal points, but when I can +1 a fight I am effective in drilling the enemy fast. And then I am on my way again to steal points.

Martin,

I wasn’t disagreeing.

I think tiers are good. I was just predicting that those in the top, very, very small tier, would not be able to find games when they felt like it, and they would want newb cannon fodder by having lower brackets play against them so the queue times are not an hour long.

Maugetarr.6823:

Justin ODell.9517:

Adding the math for a few of the suggestions I’ve seen.

Geometric Mean = (a*b*c*d*e)^(1/5)
Team 1: 1273
Team 2: 1517

Center = (min(a,b,c,d,e)+max(a,b,c,d,e))/2
Team 1: 1450
Team 2: 1525

Median = c
Team 1: 2200
Team 2: 1500

Before saying one is superior, try finding contradicting examples.

For example, I don’t like median for instances like this:
(2500, 2500, 1500, 1500, 1500) vs (1500, 1500, 1500, 1500, 1500)
Both have a median of 1500, but clearly team 1 would have the advantage.

Have you thought about using a (molecular) weight versus (molecular) number average like in polymer science? You could use the equivalent of the polydispersity for the system to see how the team values are skewed to the upper or lower mmr values.

Simplistic overview of weight versus number average :
http://www.pslc.ws/macrog/weight.htm

Polydispersity Overview:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispersity

This is the kind of useful and interesting discussion I was hoping to prompt with my post.

All of the answers have been good.

GW2 has been out for a three years. Some people have several thousand hours practicing PvP.

Some have learned to take mechanical skill and group assistance and map understanding to a completely different level way beyond 90% of the players.

Yes, they would have a small bracket. There aren’t that many of them. And yes, they are the best.

But the game should exist for the pleasure of the majority. Not this minority. They can move on to learn something else if they can’t have fun in their rightful bracket.

I don’t need to be reminded every single season of their ability. I have already acknowledged it.

This example feels to me like Team A has a predicted win likelihood of 85%. Team B at 15%.

Which means Team B has to at least score 200 points, or they all get penalized on the leaderboard.

Sorel.4870:

You guys are making good points. Theoretically, Anet could use the data from the test season to find all the balanced matches were the variance of the MMR between the two was sensibly different, and see which team tends to win. If you’re right, the team with the lowest variance would statistically win.

Good idea. Sounds like the kind of thing Justin tries to do with his simulations.