Guild Wars 2

Since the patch I would say the following:
Massively OP – Ele

Very slightly OP (but hardly at all) – Mesmer + Guardian

Balanced – Necro, Ranger, Thief, Engi

Slightly underpowered – Warrior

Apparently they deleted my thread on the ele being OP because someone reported it and I was told that you are not allowed to complain on the forums. So I guess we should confine our balance discussion to this thread if anyone still cares about pvp in this game of course which is debateable.

Azelroth.6801:

My expectations for this march patch:

• Get rid of message suppression for commanders (this is top priority because a commander must be able to communicate with the team – but how on earth is he/she able to do so whilst suppressed?)

• Give commanders the ability to change the colour of their commander tag – makes it easier for other players to know at a glance who is where without needing to join a squad.

• Increase reward types for wvw-only type of players (add in options for ascended items for badges)

• Add in a few new siege type weapons for versatility (siege weapons that can slow down enemy movement speed, block a small area or similar mechanics)

• Prestige titles (this is probably already going to be included)

• More rewards for doing the smaller (but important) things in wvw – like escorting yaks, sentrying, defending objectives etc.

• Improved loot drops (wvw costs a lot of gold for upgrades etc. try to make the loot relatively rewarding)

• Culling removal (apparently confirmed) as well as tweaking the game to allow for more optimised fps and smoother game play in zerg vs zerg battles.

Whats you source that culling removal is confirmed? There is no way they can fix culling imo. FPS drops in big fights even with culling. I think they will remove culling and the result will be a slide show which will force culling to be put back on and anet to admit they cant fix it and will instead “work on improving the current system”.

I am taking an extended break for the time being, which could become permanent, due to the following issues:
1, Inability to introduce map rotation leading to tedious tournament system.
2, Inability to make meaningful balance changes meaning eles still define the meta.
3, Inability to introduce a solo Q to keep premades and solo Q players apart.

Are they aware how lame it is to fight against a d/d or s/d ele and why do they allow this class and build to ruin fun gameplay for 4 months.

You all have good reason to moan about thieves stealth. But that is only due to culling. In spvp they are balanced ok because you can see them when you should be able to see them.

CUlling gives thieves extra stealth basically so its completely OP.

Kultas Sunstrider.9218:

Arenanet, this is not another thread about incoming features we PvPers want to see as soon as possible or a whine post about the lacks of… pretty much everything in this game PvP-side (there are already tons of topic about this). Every top PvP player loves this game and his combat system, but we are also very tired and bored and we’re leaving due to the lack of new features and the proper attention by the devs to the PvP aspect of the game. The competitive scenario is gone from a long time and the PvP overall is stagnant. Only six months have passed and the PvP of the game is already dead.

This is an advice for you, Anet: the March patch is for real your last hope to bring back old players who left and to save the game. If the next update will suck as older updates, you can definitively say bye bye to the PvP aspect of GW2.

Arenanet, we all love your game and its mechanics. Save it now. This is your last chance.

P.S.: apologize my bad englisch

I agree. For me the March patch is the last chance. If it is another balance patch which changes nothing, like february, then I am out forever for sure. And will never come back. In addition, if there arent at least 1 or 2 of the features they have been talking about for months then I am out too. This is their last chance for me. And I am a fanboy lol.

God I hope they arent going to now give us a new map for a whole kittening week again. Change it every day or every other day until they can drag someone away from pve to code random map rotations.

Seriously not having at least more frequent map rotation (should be random ofc) is probably the biggest problem with this game in terms of how easy it should be to fix. Its so tedious playing the same kitten every game for a whole week.

O and ofc balance where anet think its acceptable to balance at a snails pac. Small changes is fine but not only once a month. Thats criminal when people are quitting this game purely done to balance issues. Anet basically giving the finger to anyone who doesnt play that 1 build. You will always be second rate compared to them. What a kittening joke.

Let people see their own scores. Dont give us a ladder which is visible till they fix the solo Q fiasco.

Good idea. They should do this for sure.

shaolin.9716:

Lordrosicky.5813:

shaolin.9716:

Well it might be a perspective issue then. I find 1v1 balance important and it is extremely lacking for the warrior. God forbid the warrior gets into a 1v1 fight for a node in a game. He’s doomed from the start if his opponent is not another warrior.

This is utter bs. The warrior 100b build is a very strong 1v1 build. Its large team fights where it is more lacking.

Doesn’t sound like you duel much. That build is only strong against new players. Any half decent player mitigates that burst easily.

Yeh and a decent warrior will play it effectively to mean they cant mitigate your burst. And besides even if they dodge or u miss a whole frenzy/100b/whirlwind then you still have alot of damage with just the attacks and you can immobialise on both the axe/shield and the greatsword with leg specialist.

1, The new map was great. Are there any plans to change the secondary objectives of the old maps to make them more significant, as this would promote exciting comebacks and more dynamic combat all over the map.

shaolin.9716:

Well it might be a perspective issue then. I find 1v1 balance important and it is extremely lacking for the warrior. God forbid the warrior gets into a 1v1 fight for a node in a game. He’s doomed from the start if his opponent is not another warrior.

This is utter bs. The warrior 100b build is a very strong 1v1 build. Its large team fights where it is more lacking.

Warrior isnt that bad. But its still the worst class. The 100b build is pretty good and fairly viable even at high levels. The problem is there really arent any other builds around. I know there was a few hammer dudes on this new map and a few longbow dudes lurking around on the more traditional conquest maps but still they could do with more fundamental changes than weapon changes. They could do with buffing or changing warrior traits. Shrug it off seems a logical trait which could see a serious buff imo.

The logical thing to make warrior balanced from my point of view would be to rework the tactics minor traits.

This is the current:
Adept- Determined Revival - Gain 5 extra toughness per level while reviving.
Master – Fast Healer – Increases revive speed by 10%.
Grandmaster - Reviver’s Might – Grant might to nearby allies when you revive someone.

These are useless in wvw and pve pretty much and obviously some of the worst minor traits in the game for pvp.

I would recommend the following changes:
Adept – Shrug it off – Use shake it off automatically when you have more than 1 conditions – this can only trigger every 20 seconds.
Master – Fast healer (the same)
Grandmaster – Gain protection for 6 seconds when health reaches 50% (60 sec cd)

Of course movement skills should be effected by chills and cripples and things. Otherwise they are pointless and might as well be removed from the game. In fact all movement skills should be effected by chills and cripples even gasp ride the lightning. How about that?

Your quote marks are just wrong. They know people want duelling and have said as much but they dont think its a priority. A lot of people agree with them. Imo it isnt a priority.

When a server wins a week in wvw everyone on that server should get a mail saying congratulations and giving them a “wvw reward chest” with 5 laurels in it.

Shukran.4851:

“voip”
“practice”
are 2 parameters of how premade vs mixed won’t be “fair and competitive”

voip isnt really an excuse. Its not hard to just play good without voip. It is more just team compostion and the fact most randoms dont read chat and glory kitten because thats how they learnt in hotjoin and it is what the scoring system rewards.

You cant have duo in with solo otherwise the ratings will be incorrect. Those queuing with a friend will have a significant advantage. So it will become: whoever queues with a friend most often has the highest rating.

Or this one……….our 4th player left halfway through.

This sort of scenario isnt even rare sadly….

Hugs.1856:

Do NOT turn the show into a developer interview.

Monitor the speech time, 20 minutes for each player and 20 minutes for Anet (the 2 devs). Notify people by private messages when their speech time is running out rather than aloud as it breaks the pace of discussion though.

Have talks about the current state if the game rather than future development – so we can avoid the annoying “when it’s ready”

Make sure the talks are actually technical and complex enough to justify having top players. For example, there’s no point in talking for ages about how eles are good on the new map, or that premades shouldn’t face pugs of the same rating, we can all read the forum for that:p

Ideally you’d want to mix a high level of theorycrafting with strategies, tactics and Balance/mechanics as played on the top tier. -which let’s be honest wasn’t always the case In the previous shows.

Don’t pretend ANYONE watches these for anything other than seeing what the devs say. The last one was good because it told us what was going on and let us see the devs vision. They have to limit what the players say because there really is no interest in what they say, we can find that out anywhere like checking the forums. I really dont think its productive or interesting to see what 1 or 2 players think except to help ask questions to the devs which they feel represent the part of the community they come from. I hope the sotg revolves primarily around the developers and getting answers from them.

Well hopefully they will get rid of them when they see the numbers showing nobody would ever do them by choice.

They should make corrupt boon like epidemic. Always goes off regardless of los or anything. And maybe increase its cd to a minute if they can do this. Would be pretty cool. I mean corrupt boon is useless unless the opponent has boons. When I fight a mesmer who often doesnt have many boons and I am running corrupt boon/epidemic/signet of undeath and they are running mantras then how can I win? I have no utilities of any use for a 1 v1 and then have all theirs for 1 v 1 fights.

And yeh, nerfing protection seems an easy way to bring bunkers into line. They would probably have to nerf burst at the same time.

Celeras.4980:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Here is what happened:

- I got a full set of solo queuers on my team 7 times and the other 2 times I was with a duo/trio and solo queuers
- I got matched against a full premade 7 times, a full solo team once and 1 trio + duo team
- I won my first 3 games and then lost 5 of the next 6

Conclusion – Queuing solo in this game is a nightmare.

Are you kidding me? You went against a bunch a ton of premades with solo queuers and your record was 4-5. That’s as close to splitting as you can get with an odd number of games.

Yet your conclusion is that it’s a nightmare? You won half your games, that proves the exact opposite: the queue system is working and you’re being put in even matches. It sounds to me that you want to be put up against nothing but solo queuers so you can try to carry randoms to victory, which is pathetic.

The first three were against teams which were obv pve guilds trying out the new map so its more like 1-5

Just to give some more feedback. I have done more testing and I literally run into a premade with a solo q team EVERY GAME. Every single game it puts them against top premades with a bunch of solo queuers. And the wierd thing is that often I have a few players under level 10 on my team. I mean wtf. How is this possible. Its such a demoralising experience. Please remove the join solo button to spare casuals this

I cant believe signet of locust works with the orb either. I can get it up there so fast its insane. Rangers are the best runners imo. Quickness to pick up orb on pet swap then use movement sig to move so quick with leaps.

How much does PvE balancing considerations effect what they are able to do with PvP balance?

kostbabis.8791:

@Lordrosicky Dont know if thats the case.But if they ever make it so its affected then i ll expect all the complaints about ele to stop at least from those at top pvp level.
If you cant cripple an ele and prevent him from reaching the far point or escaping then you just suck.Even with no nerfs at healing just that change should solve all the problems people have with this class.
Of course then id expect some buffs to damage reliability and crappy traits but thats another story..

Every class has crappy traits. Elementalists can deliver good damage even when specced into 30 into water. Good elementalists can hit you hard with alot of might and by using their fire attunement effectively. Also 2 eles are basically just devestating together in damage, cc and healing.

I think elementalists are spolit. As in their one/two specs if so op that they wouldnt run another spec. But that doesnt mean the other specs are going to be bad….but just bad compared to their own spec. But every classes spec is bad compared to that spec. Except maybe mesmer

kostbabis.8791:

Lordrosicky.5813:

The problem is there are inconsistnacies. The warrior GS 5 ability and 3 ability have vastly reduced range when carrying the orb. This is balanced. Ride the lightning isnt balanced because it is unaffected by the orb. It also makes no sense for rtl to be unaffected by chills and cripples.

I think the devs should clarify this. ATM spirit watch is by FAR the best and most fun map imo. However……..its not tournament ready until they fix rtl with the orb.

Can you verify for me if warriors sword leap is affected?
Also theres no reason for 20 sec cd if rtl is gonna get affected by chills and cripples.A lot of classes spam those at constant rate so if that was true then you had any s/d build unable to escape.You usually cant cleasne conditions while in air either so you are limited to either cleanse or get the hell out of there .
So pls enlight me with that rtl change you say what is the build every ele will immediately go too then??
i think the full cond cleansing bunker one :P

Yeh once they fix the chill/cripple AND orb thing make the cd 15 seconds again. The higher cd is a decent temporary measure till they fix the bug.

The problem is there are inconsistnacies. The warrior GS 5 ability and 3 ability have vastly reduced range when carrying the orb. This is balanced. Ride the lightning isnt balanced because it is unaffected by the orb. It also makes no sense for rtl to be unaffected by chills and cripples.

I think the devs should clarify this. ATM spirit watch is by FAR the best and most fun map imo. However……..its not tournament ready until they fix rtl with the orb.

Edit: There must be coding problems not allowing rtl to be effected by chills and cripples. Otherwise it is exceptionally bizarre this HUGE bug hasnt been fixed yet. This bug effects every pvp game dozens of time even when not on spirit watch.

Lady Sara Goldheart.2764:

About the suggestion on page 1 and the response of Tyler.
Divide the brackets in 3 groups. Solo/Duo, Pre-made and the group in between.
Else there is no chance but to have unrated frees for a group of 3 or 4.
To argue that Solo cannot be implemented due to the group of 3 or 4 people will hurt more people’s experience than those specific groups.

That isnt mathematically possible. The only way people can Q with 4 is if people also solo Q in the same bracket. I would say just: Solo/duo and premade Q

Oni.5429:

My team has easily over a 95% winratio when we play together.

Does anyone here think that I’ll ever face something that isnt a premade when I solo que?

My experience is when I solo Q I get paired vs a premade about 90% of the time (its probably more). I expect you will always play a premade ^^

Penguin.5197:

Just don’t worry about mmr, in reality its a bad system that does not accurately show how good or bad you actually are. Actually it would just mean if you pug or not. Lower mmr=pugs a lot and thats about it.

Yeh but if they publish them then pugging will make it harder to then get in a premade when you want to….

I happily solo queue or play with 2/3 or anyone really. Its unfair my mmr is then worse than people who always queue 5 man with TS even when they are probably way worse than me but will have a higher MMR so “officially” be better…….

Just wanted to bump this up and say that now solo Q and full teams are back in the same “pool” of players that I really hope they dont publish ratings. I dont see why people like me should be punished for solo queuing and losing to worse players who are in premades because we have 3 signet warriors on our team.

Just kite a d/d necro. He has to be close to do damage and chances are he has no mobility at all. Also they have no evasion and basically just get 1 shotted by thieves. On my power build a 12k backstab was standard and I even saw 10k heartseekers.

Hugs.1856:

So much arrogance here, so much anger and rudeness, it’s hard to believe oO

How can you even think of telling ArenaNet that Gw2 isn’t their game and they’re not free to decide to do whatever they want with it?

When you bought the game did it give you shares in the company? Did the activation code come with a decision right?

We are players: we play the game. If we don’t enjoy it, we leave. If we want to improve it, we make suggestions. We argue reasonably – yeye, the internet, blabla, but still-. But we certainly don’t dictate devs what to do oO

And to come back on that pug vs premade thingy: a pug of people with thousands of games in the top tier is likely to win over a premade who only plays a few games then and there. If you can understand that, then you realize that there’s actually an algorithm that can make the occasional pug vs premades balanced, close and fun.

I agree people should really be more polite in these threads. I mean its ok to be passionate but some civility needs to be maintained come on everyone

I have said for ages that we need solo Q. I agree team composition and tactics and communication are underestimated by the devs, who conversely vastly overestimate the importance of individual skill. This probably reflects the disconnect from us knowing that being part of a team is the most important think and them thinking individual player skill comes close or surpasses this.

With a solo queue that is rated we also need hidden rosters until the game launches so people cant dodge noobie rosters. And hotjoin needs to go to force people into this far more enjoyable form on pvp.

I agree with ONI, the systems are all there they just need piecing together. However, collectively this is still a big undertaking. This is why we do need a BIG pvp patch which can also include custom arenas. EVerything so far in pvp (and wvw) has been a band aid on broken systems and mechanics. I know more people play pve than pvp. And I know most of your time as a company will go there because of this. But most pvpers feel neglected when we see just how much content pve is getting and how ignored we are. They have full reworks of systems and have had soooo many new areas of content to enjoy. All we need is a workable sandbox system which could take you a bit of effort and then we are sorted for years and years.

It is worth the time investment to support us pvpers because we arent demanding like pve. We make our own content. But you need to give us the tools to do this.

Zodian.6597:

Lordrosicky.5813:

If someone logs out whilst solo queuing for a tournament before the count down is up then someone else should take their roster spot.

This will solve 99% of the 4 vs 5 problems.

But I dont believe this is the sole problem. The number of 4 vs 5 matches on very very short queues is remarkable. I think you need to look into you system. There could be some coding errors which are causing 4 man teams to be produced. There was never this many 4 vs 5 games even with the old 8 man queues with epically long queues.

Either way, I dont like the idea of punishing deserters. But I do like the idea kicking people from the roster whenever they log out and are in a queue. This seems like it should logically happen. But please only do this when that person solo queued because otherwise you will ruins so many premade vs premade matches.

Well if you look at the bigger picture, custom arenas are going to solve ALOT of problems, such as the whole “i don’t want to play the map that’s being used for todays tournaments”, we also could scrap hotjoin once customs are in place; pushing more people into the tournament game queue, and it also helps people trying to create media content for the game by giving them at least one of the tools that they may need to create guide videos, host scrims or what have you, the 2nd being spectator mode (to later host tournaments/shoutcast scrims -something a few organizations I’ve spoken recently with plan on doing).
While I agree that solo queue is a HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE part of why spvp fell off the deep end; we must approach the situation from a marketing perspective as well; right now there is virtually no media content being produced that promotes the competitive or even casual PvP scene in this game, we’ll need that media to grab peoples attention and get the to logg back into the game.

tldr; custom arenas = essential tool for pvp youtubers, gw2 media content creation = more people seeing game play = more people coming back to the game (which is the real “highest” priority for everyone right now).

Good post and I agree. Of all the features there I am personally most excited about custom arenas. Just because of the change it will make to how I play the game. Its going to be fun setting up GvG or just intraguild fighting in arenas. I agree it solves a ton of problems.

Also here are my ideas to tweak the other maps to be more exciting like spirit:

1, Legacy – make the lord kill win the game but buff the gate HP by 5 times (can only do this once you know you have eliminated ways for thieves to glitch in ofc).

2, Forrest – Make the bosses worth 35 or 50 points not 25

3, Temple – Spawn the two middle buffs earlier in the match maybe at 13.30 and 12.30 and then spawn them again at 10.30 and 9.30 and again at 7.30 and 6.30 (although match be over probs)

4, Kyhlo – I think this map is fine

Thoughts?

Spirit plays entirely differently to any other map. Its basically a whole new game type. They obviously saw people wanted more game types and this was the answer. And it was a very good answer. This map is hardly conquest at all. Gone are the two bunkers on points and roam between. There are alot more fights and its way more fun. It has instantly made new builds like the CC hammer warrior extremely viable. When it would be useless outside of this map.

Edit: Although they need to fix rtl with orbs ofc

If someone logs out whilst solo queuing for a tournament before the count down is up then someone else should take their roster spot.

This will solve 99% of the 4 vs 5 problems.

But I dont believe this is the sole problem. The number of 4 vs 5 matches on very very short queues is remarkable. I think you need to look into you system. There could be some coding errors which are causing 4 man teams to be produced. There was never this many 4 vs 5 games even with the old 8 man queues with epically long queues.

Either way, I dont like the idea of punishing deserters. But I do like the idea kicking people from the roster whenever they log out and are in a queue. This seems like it should logically happen. But please only do this when that person solo queued because otherwise you will ruins so many premade vs premade matches.

+1 this is such a huge issue atm that it makes me think there is something wrong with the matchmaking…..as in it is only finding 4 players and starting the match

kostbabis.8791:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Michael.3279:

Ride The Lightning can traverse literally half the distance from Orb to Capture. How is that not broken? The moment an Ele can SEE their capture point, they can push a button and BE there. It’s broken.

Yeh its broken. They should hotfix this because I count it as a bug, and it does ruin the map somewhat. ALthough generally I like the map ALOT. There is no reason why rtl isnt effected by the 40% slowdown. It should also be effected by chills and cripple like every other skill.

if rtl should be affected by cripples and chill then it should be dropped to 15 sec cd or even lower.
Take the warrior for example.2 sword leaps cover 1200 units while they have a cd of 16 sec and a little bit more downtime due to animation.Add to that wwhirlwind +rush and you can see how a 20 sec rtl that is affected by slows lacks behind for a class thats "supposed "to have squishy glass options too.
Rtl is not a charge/leap skill.Its an effect that locks you out of attunement and ANY other skill you have.You also cannot cancel it or control it in any other form.
ITS DIFFERENT!
Also im so happy defektive doesnt have problem(well almost) with eles this time :P

Regardless of whether it is effected by chills and cripples it absolutely should be effected by the orb. Otherwise the map starts to become a joke.

Defektive.7283:

This is my new personal tier list and it’s more focused on Class Use and the new Map.

Tier S
- Elementalist – Reason: Some loss in bunkering / dps viability (correct me if I’m wrong).

Tier A
+ Mesmer – unchanged.
Ranger – unchanged.
Guardian – They feel more useful as something other than a point defender (orb carrier).

Tier B
=Necro – Lots of bug fixes, but lacks mobility. Great in teamfights.
=Thief – Mobility + orb carrier burst is fantastic on SW.
=Engineer – 100n slight nerf, but I’ve seen some promising up-coming builds.

Tier C
+ Warrior – Reason: mobility + lockdown mechanics are a godsend in the new Map.
———————————————————————————————————

I feel like necro should be at least + due to the nerf to emphatic bond making us alot better vs rangers. And if you are talking about the new map then the ele should be ++ or even above tier s. Its been balanced more on other maps but on this map it is grossly OP due to the RTL with the orb bug. And the fact an ele can rtl/lightning flash to the orb and pick it up before the other team can get there (if they have no ele).

Michael.3279:

Ride The Lightning can traverse literally half the distance from Orb to Capture. How is that not broken? The moment an Ele can SEE their capture point, they can push a button and BE there. It’s broken.

Yeh its broken. They should hotfix this because I count it as a bug, and it does ruin the map somewhat. ALthough generally I like the map ALOT. There is no reason why rtl isnt effected by the 40% slowdown. It should also be effected by chills and cripple like every other skill.

Sovta.4719:

Lordrosicky.5813:

The new map completely changes the bunker/roamer dynamic. It really is a huge change. And its fun…no….its INCREDIBLE! :P

Did you actually see elementalist on new this new map?

yeh its op but I think thats cos of bugs…RTL and mist form espcially.

Apollo.7389:

Lordrosicky.5813:

I think in some circumstances I can now solo a bunker ele (condi necro) after this patch. Before I couldnt.

If he is a true bunker ele then he sucks or you are pro or he messed up. No offense but they can removed the MOST condi out of everyone

Corrupt boon I expect is why. Even so they are slighlty more killable for sure.

It actually is. I was hating it last night but its good for these reasons (now the patch has started to settle):

1, The new map completely changes the bunker/roamer dynamic. It really is a huge change. And its fun…no….its INCREDIBLE! :P

2, The balance changes are resonably good. It moved things in the right direction. Bunker eles seem far more under control now (although they need to delay the orb spawn for first 10 seconds so ele isnt insanely op – currently can pick up orb before any other class can get there).

3, The removal of tickets was a good move

However, the bad side is this:

The matchmaking system doesnt do enough to keep pugs and premades apart. They need to seperate solo Q and premade Q. Just make the 8 team a 2 team and only let solo q people reg for it and require a premade for the other 2 team Q.

O and please introduce a random map generator.

Once this is done I really think things are good.

This patch: 7/10 for me. it really was some good changes but those things above are needed.

GJ Anet.