Guild Wars 2

Daggers.
Preferably with Phantasmal Pistolwhippers.

hendo.1940:

Necro minions healing Lupicus and causing repeated transitions, thieves who don’t know how to blast their own smoke screen, guardians using line/ring of warding on bosses, elementalists who just sit there autoattacking, GS mesmers. The amount of pugs who don’t contribute is extraordinary and I see it every day. It makes me so relieved I’m a crack Arah runner and can just carry entire groups because if I was as clueless as the rest of them it would be some three hour run of hell.

Listing examples and patting yourself on the back, again you don’t seem to get the point that just because you have a certain experience in groups that it is the norm.
Considering the attitude you appear to have against PUGs odds are fairly high that you’re also somewhat exaggerating it.

I go in to a PUG with the assumption that they aren’t as experienced as me, and they fulfill that criteria basically every single time.

Hmm yes, you are right.. that DOES look better than what I said.. but in reality it is exactly what I said.

hendo.1940:

Maybe I need to upload my entire gallery of screenshots of groups thanking me for carrying them through fights X, Y and Z and/or through the entire dungeon. By the time I finish my pug runs, groups are normally extremely grateful I was there. I don’t brag about it either, I just quietly get on with it – actions speak louder than words.

Sure it is always nice when somebody sends a “well played” in your direction, but screenworthy? The sole purpose for screening that should be to brag about it, something you claim you do not do.

I’m not sure man, I’m just not sure.

hendo.1940:

I’m not sure what pugs you’re getting because I can probably count on one hand the amount of times I have pugged and we have opened up fights with fire fields and blasts.

That is truly unfortunate.

hendo.1940:

What. I stack on the boss, work towards full reflect uptime and just win.

Ah, so you position yourself in melee with the boss and then STACK reflect to reach its maxed duration.

Standing in melee/under the boss is hardly stacking good sir.

hendo.1940:

I agree, the fact that we can get 45 minute Fractal 50s while having to fight all three of these bosses if we’re unlucky clearly isn’t skill, it’s just stack and 1111111.

No I’m absolutely certain that you consider it skill, furthermore I don’t think I’ve seen anyone just mash autoattacks in fractals at all yet, regardless of difficulty.

hendo.1940:

Now let’s see your videos. Also, thanks for the complete dismissal of the effort people like me put in to learning to solo fights since it’s clearly just stack and 11111111111, it’s easy brainless faceroll, amirite?

Well, I mean sure, to some it might require more than just mashing 1 to beat them…
Considering I’ve soloed quite a bunch of things here myself I have to say I haven’t dismissed any of the ‘effort’ you put in, I’ve downplayed it a tad bit because it isn’t such a big deal.. Theres probably quite afew players out there who has soloed quite afew bosses but haven’t had the need to create a video of it..
Because that is perhaps what the big issue is here; Some of us don’t strive to show off our ‘uberkills’ to others, we beat them because we want to see wether or not we can.
So I’m going to skip your videos mind you, I’m sure they are very impressive tho.

There is a longterm casual way of earning quite abit of gold, but if you expect instant returns, you’re going to be in for a bad time.

hendo.1940:

If they were trying to apply might we’d have a fire field before the start of the fight, we’d have eles who knew what blast finishers were, we’d have rangers using off-hand warhorn. The truth is, they aren’t trying to apply might, the only time you can semi-consistently get might is warriors using for great justice because all it requires is a skill click. And I quite rightly perceive pug groups as bad when I’m effortlessly performing skips and soloing basically the entire dungeon for them (one arah run I did, I did hunter/crusher solo on warrior, switched to thief, skipped them through to magecrusher, switched to warrior for lupicus – and then for arah p2 I mesmer’d belka, ported them to abomination, I dealt with reflects, CC and stability for the boss and adds, I finished off Lupicus, I carried the entire Alphard fight (they were wailing away at her not realising it was my reflect uptime which is what made it so they weren’t hitting dirt) and then ported them to Brie.

You go girl!
Carrying them through arrah and doesn’t afraid of anything!

No really, I used might as an example and I’m sure theres people who don’t contribute in pugs, I’m just saying they’re far and few between in my experience.

hendo.1940:

I pug out of a sense of masochism and because I enjoy carrying, but the fact that I enjoy it doesn’t mean they are actually good. Most good players just play in their own guilds.

As such you also go into each PUG with the asumption that the other players are simply bad and need you to carry them.

hendo.1940:

No, players are literally just bad.

To other players, you are one of those players.

hendo.1940:

Outside of guardian empower and for great justice I pretty much don’t see any other might stacking, and that is consistent across all dungeons whenever I pug them.

And that is just anecdotal, I see it happen more often than not, you evidently dont. we’re not getting anywhere on this particular part, accept that my experience with pugs is different to yours and leave it at that.

hendo.1940:

I didn’t stack a single boon, I chained reflects. And no, you haven’t seen it countless times because pugs still safe spot Magecrusher. They still pull hunter/crusher outside. I might be in an elite dungeon guild but I pug so much that it helps me keep in touch with the standard and quality of runs, and they are still doing these amateur things almost two years after release.

If you don’t stack, your initial statement that “you solo stack on magecrusher” is simply not true.

Furthermore I congratulate you on your omnivision, being able to observe what other players see while not being present yourself.. remarkable.

hendo.1940:

Lupicus, Simin, Magecrusher, Abomination, Alphard, Archdiviner, Mossman, Mai Trin.

So 8 fights out of n rewards skill, I’d say Archdiviner, mossman and mai trin doesn’t really do it either.

hendo.1940:

The fact that GW2 is so skill based is why I even enjoy playing it so much, without being forced to rely on others, I can quite easily keep myself going against bosses even once everyone is dead.

Yes, it is quite enjoyable to solo bosses after your party has gone belly up. It has more to do with a poor attention span than anything else tho and I would hardly call moving out of red circles skillfull.

hendo.1940:

They’re the best trade-off between DPS and utility, and hit as many damage modifiers as possible. Note how 10/30 and 0/30 both hit a phantasm damage modifier, empowering mantras and compounding power. They also choose to trait focus. The only difference between the two is illusionist’s celerity and 100 power. One of them has 100 power, the other has celerity.

Even tho I already knew that and the explanation is mighty fine, it wasn’t remotely close to what I asked.
Consider this: These 2 are nothing else than a deviation of the same build and as far as I can see, noone has actually compared these to other builds in terms of DATA, we can all find out what the strong suites of a build is merely by glancing over the traits and see where they deviate from eachother but we don’t see any actual data.
All this tells us is that in a comparison between build A and B we get a slightly higher power for build A and a slightly higher rate of phantasms for build B, we do however NOT get any information whatsoever that determine wether or not build A or B has the highest output nor if there is a hidden option build C that is simply being neglected as it deviates too much from build A and B.

TLDR; Same builds, minor deviations, lack of data.

hendo.1940:

Except, I pug all the time and bad pugs never apply relevant boons or vulnerability. Sure, stacking is to enable sharing of boons, but pugs don’t do it properly, the boons don’t just appear.

Which means we differentiate between bad and less bad pugs, when it comes to larger blobs you’re going to wound up with most of the boons simply by sheer accident, in smaller groups you might however end up missing certain boons. The reason however can be quite a different thing than simply a case of bawfulness; Lets say you’re in a group of 5, it is highly plausible that IF you are in a pug, several of your players are trying to provide the same boon or apply weakness, this leads to an excess of that boon/condition that simply gets wasted. In return, it also leads to a lack of something else that you may be expecting from the group.. as such you perceive them as BAD because hey, you applied your 49 stacks of might.. why aren’t they applying vulnerability? Perhaps they too are trying to apply might?

While it is purely anecdotal I must say that in the pugs I’ve been in, the vast majority of players do apply what they can based around their build.. absolutely room for improvement in some cases but it is more likely to be a case of colliding roles rather than a case of the players being bad.

hendo.1940:

Bad groups stack in a safe spot which makes me want to flip tables and ragequit groups. Decent players stack directly in melee, chain reflects and dodge (or CC him) the symbol detonation. I soloed it first time on mesmer with stack + reflect because I’m not an idiot and know how to actually interact with its mechanics unlike most groups who (if pushed) will stack on him, not reflect, get gunk thrown at them and die.

So basically you stacked boons solo and rotated boons in a group, seen rotations happen in pugs on countless occasions..

hendo.1940:

So it basically says the game rewards skill and that CC enables you to achieve clean kills – brute forcing with just DPS works but is far more inefficient.

If the game rewarded skill then we’d be seeing more fights like liandri and less fights with safe spots.

While you’re using carrion I’d go with 0/0/25(V,X)/25(II, VII)/20(VI, IX) and replace the sword with a scepter for access to torment and confusion to bolster your warlock a wee bit. Since you’re probably going to be at range for most of the time you’re in WvW the sword goes abit unused (since you’re in a group) thus causing it to lose abit of value. Granted this will cause you to lose an immobilize so it wont help you with solo roams.

Dependant on the size of your group I’d consider dropping feedback for the portal aswell.. if the group is large enough.

Considering you’re planning on replacing the carrion gear you’re going to want a completely different build once you get to that point tho.

maxinion.8396:

Just because PUGs run it doesn’t mean it’s good. Shatter is baaad in PvE, and so is GS. Pyro’s post is correct. If you care for the best builds for mesmer right now, use s/f + s/s with 10/30/0/20/10 or 0/30/0/25/15. The former has slightly more damage, the latter has slightly faster phant cooldowns.

Edit: nice post from hendo as well~ All correct points.

Whereas both shatter and GS may be less useful right now it still holds true that the mesmers I’ve seen recently have almost exclusively been using either of these 2.

That said tho, what are your foundations for determining that at this moment these builds are the best? I’ve not bothered doing a comparitive DPS test myself but from what I can see, noone has presented a coherent DPS comparison chart for mesmer builds and the miniscule testing done for each build seems to be limited to “This is my build, watch me attack a mob with it.”

hendo.1940:

There are still things you can stack and DPS while solo. Ancient Ooze, Magercrusher, Lyssa..

When it comes to the PvE in this game you can safely asume that the ‘stacking’ that goes on is either in the forms of boons, conditions or everyone piling up on the commandertag in a fluffy ball of blobitivity.

The thing here is simply put this: You’re asuming he means one thing when he states “stack”, I’m implying he mean something different.

However please, do elaborate on the stacking for magecrusher.. As far as I recall, the stacking is done by having all the players stack up on the platform? Surely having 1 player stand there is hardly to be considered stacking.

hendo.1940:

Try the abomination in trio or groups then, a pug won’t shave the defiant correctly or apply stability, or pull the mobs to the centre and people will go down. Experienced groups will do all of these and get a clean kill.

And all this implies is that a coordinated group that has done the boss before would outperform a group of randomly thrown together players, doesn’t quite say anything useful at all does it?

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

As for the bad “dad” joke, the acronym spells “dead rot”! Anyone else catch that?

Dedicated Union of Meat Based Races Of Tyria

I so get a different result than you.

Deamhan.9538:

The whole ‘taking class restrictions off weapons and armor’ sound familiar….oh that’s right ESO. Could it be that what finally got ANet to move is direct competition?

Having tried ESO I’ll just say lets not go as far as to call it competition

hendo.1940:

oh look, it’s another person trying to simplify the depth of combat in this game. Solo the abomination in Arah p2 on mesmer and then come back and say it’s about stacking.

I boldificated the 2 keywords of absurdity.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Not accurate even in the slightest.

The PvE meta has never used shatter, and I doubt it ever will. It’s a 0/30/0/25/15 or 10/30/0/20/10 phantasm builds using sword/sword+sword/focus for the most part.

Like I said, from what I’ve observed in the vast majority of blobs in the recent month, most mesmers are running with a GS followed up with a sword offhand for the swordsman.

Quite afew shatter mesmers aswell lately, and mind you, back in the earlier iterations of Citadel of Flame farming, mesmers ran shatter so it was most definitly part of the PvE “meta”, if it is now? Maybe not, I don’t have any numbers on the subject.

It’d be such an easy fix to let players just OPT OUT of 1 map of their choosing when they queue for solo or team tournys.

That way the engis can continue queueing for it and everyone who dislikes it gets to queue for the rest of the maps.

Phadde.7362:

So it would seem that some don’t like this… variation while playing sPvP? Seems wierd since a big chunk of the criticism towards PvP in GW2 is its repetitive nature (perhaps because there’s only one game mode?)
…

So what you’re saying is that instead of having 3 points to capture with various mechanics such as trebuchets, guild lords or orbs, we got a map where theres 3 points to capture with a mechanic that is hauntingly similiar to that of the trebuchets.

Such variation, much difference.

In summary: Full berserker was nerfed thus prolonging fights causing the blobians to have to dodge a couple of additional attacks, this causes them to consider the system a ‘failure’ as they are not using any other gear, which they may now have to consider doing.

Raunchy.6891:

He said pve…

Also from what I understand it’s still just a standard phantasm build with sw/focus + sw/x.

Funny, from what I’ve seen in pve so far its either a proper shatter build or a berserker/ swordsman combo.. which would imply GS+ x/sword.

That said, they only really want you for projectile reflects and quickness as a mesmer.. if you really want to pve now you need a warrior or a guardian.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

You mix up under “zerk” smart players willing to complete content in the most optimal way and terrible knownothings that copy past fotm builds.

Ps: You can’t plow through the content in berserker gear, unless by content you mean Hearts and World Events.

No I really didn’t, but people attempt to glorify zerker gear and it is just not a be all end all if you don’t use it.

And PS: Yes, you definitly can.. That is the entire point right now, people don’t attempt to counter mechanics of fights because they would rather just brute force the boss with berserk builds and as long as it works they’ll keep doing it, this nerf is a definite step in the right direction.

blakdoxa.7520:

TL:DR
Unless something happens to dodge (never) and mob design becomes sufficiently better (unlikely), I don’t see how reducing our damage (being the first change to zerk gear) is going to change anything.

If it doesn’t change anything, you have nothing to worry about.

Acaro.4067:

No, it isn´t the death of competitive gaming. LoL, the one competitive eSport game also has an unlocking system for it´s champions. What´s import is that you unlock them by actually playing the game, that it doesn´t take long to unlock the traits you need, but to unlock every trait there is can take some time, which is a good think

Competitive gaming is vastly larger than league of legends, league of legends is also the sole game among the esport games to actually maintain a system with unlocks.

The change we’re seeing in GW2 with this is another step away from the initial manifesto they provided with what the game was going to be, it doesn’t kill competitive gaming in GW2 but it doesn’t quite attract new players to tPvP either.

haviz.1340:

Same stuff happened with gw1, either you brought proper builds or you got kicked.

Well, yes..

There is a vast difference tho because in GW your builds were highly specialised for a very limited part of the game. Whereas in GW2, you slap on your warriors berserker gear and then google whatever build happens to be the flavor of the month and you can get away with this in all PvE related content of the game.

See the difference? GW: Build diversity dependant on what content is being tackled.
GW2: Berserker fotmbuilds regardless of what train/blob they are currently participating in.

There is another significant difference here tho; In GW you joined a Team, you had to work with eachothers skills to make sure that you were able to properly progress throughout areas.

In GW2, you locate the latest fotmbuild, equip your berserker armor and plow through the content while hating anyone attempting to test a new build as that build is totally not part of the meta and is going to potentionally ruin your precious gold per hour.

haviz.1340:

Moreover, any decent blob is running soldier’s cause berserker’s are just rally bots and they can’t even tank last mobs from ls – the assault knights.

Any decent blob isn’t a blob.
Unless the blob is by majority made up of a single guilds members, you’re not going to see anything regarding gear. As you can not determine what a member of the blob is actually wearing, you simply do not have a way of determining what their setup is.
(Berserkers)

People seem to think that having the AI deal damage for you is somehow beneficial, you clearly haven’t seen how kitten this AI actually is.

haviz.1340:

Lue.6538:

Let them kick then.
berserk gear needed a change to break up this horribly boring PvE and even tho there will still be zealous elfs who refuse to accept that other things than pure zerker works they’ll end up being a minority.

Everything works so I’m not sure what your point is.

My point is that it is not the game that is to be blamed for the lack of diversity but rather the players, when the only builds being accepted by the kitten s end up being berserker builds then that is all you get to see. Theres also a significant exaggeration in terms of how hard most mobs hit in these discussions..
I suppose exaggeration is alright tho as long as it further solidify the zerker builds position as the primary part of any decent blob.

Dreary Yew.5187:

Hobbitz.5831:

WvW will still be zerging and ‘1’ spam.

You fail to see the intricacies of WvW ZvZ combat.

The meta has been shifting to conditions for quite some time in ZvZ. The crit damage to ferocity change is the final nail in the coffin for direct damage.

Now ZvZ is going to be all condition spam builds that take very little skill and have the most passive playstyles, not to mention melting frontline like butter while still having tons of vitality and toughness.

The changes are good for PvE.

God awful for PvP and WvW.

Implying that any build in ZvZ requires skill.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

You still want a team of full berserkers. People will just be more selective and kick more often for errors/ways of play zerk that used to be minor or irrelevant. Most of the player base (pugs, casuals) get hit hard.

Let them kick then.
berserk gear needed a change to break up this horribly boring PvE and even tho there will still be zealous elfs who refuse to accept that other things than pure zerker works they’ll end up being a minority.

xantosnightwish.5438:

There is no reason to split the GW2 community over this. If youre a PVE player that thinks this is unfair, why not form a team and compete?

Most likely because the team composition would end up being 4 fully zerk warriors with a guardian, ele or mesmer as backup, also in full zerk ofcourse.

cassius.5809:

Shall I hold off ranking anymore or have they implemented new chest rewards?

They have implemented a version of the champion loot bags but with PvE loot instead of PvE loot to better cater to the PvP players.

BeardRex.6739:

That’s a slippery slope fallacy.

A slippery slope fallacy would mean that by implementing unlocks they will inevitably implement vertical progression.

What he asks is basically: They did this, why not also do this?" and not “Now that they did this, this will also happen.”

He didn’t commit a slippery slope fallacy.

iriyabran.6218:

In gw1 we used to unlock skills with balth factions. This doesn’t bother me. The lack of different game modes bothers me tho.

Unless you can pick up an 2 elite skills / 6 normal skills per hour you’re looking at a slower rate of gain, pile on the simple fact that GW skills were Bound to account and not to character and you’re looking at an even larger difference.

I wouldn’t mind this at all if it was account bound, but it isn’t.

Steelxsoldier.6512:

Just a clarification here:

Earlier it was stated by Roy that new players in pvp will still have all traits unlocked EXCEPT the new ones that will be added. If this is the case, then I dont see a reason to complain, unless the price for unlocking is something crazy like 1g or more. Hell, the way i see it 10 or 20 games of hotjoin will get you all of the skills you need (hopefully)

I cant imagine them only costing 1g with all the gold flying around in PvE atm.
Personally I suspect they’ll be closer to 5-10g a piece.. but ofcourse these are pure speculations.

Pyriall.5027:

Is it a conscious decision to always implement features that infuriate the pvpers?

I believe it was a part of the original manifesto.

Justin ODell.9517:

This exact scenario is on our radar, and we definitely want to make it possible. Hopefully you’ll get a better idea of what we have in mind when we talk about the new rewards system.

Would it be possible to acquire traits as rewards from PvP rather than invest gold for unlocking them? Perhaps something similiar to the scrolls of knowledge but for individual traits instead?

Sithaco.4673:

Wow, I actually can’t believe this.

I know it’s not a MAJOR deal, but it’s just rediculous how much Arenanet goes against what they’ve previously said…

What happened to all the “a new character can jump right into PvP and not be at a disadvantage/be on par with everyone else”.

Well now that’s down the water, what next? Wanna introduce gear rarity and stat differences as well when we merge PvP and PvE armor as one?

Come on Arenanet, seriously reconsider this change, I get that you want people to experience all parts of the game, but don’t try and merge PvP and PvE like this, it’s just wrong and goes against everything “different” about our PvP compared to other MMO’s.

Introducing a means to get ascended armor from pvp wouldn’t be all bad tho, asuming ofcourse you could use it in pve.

Granted if it turns out I’ll need to join the blobs in pve to be able to competitively pvp within a reasonable timeframe, I’ll probably just leave.

Nettle.9025:

Complains about having to spend some tourney winnings to unlock 5 new traits….

Decides to pvp in a different game with both pvp gear and amp (trait) grind.

:)

There is a slight difference as this goes straight against what sPvP was supposed to be,
if the new ‘traits’ are supposed to be any kind of gold sink then I can guarantee you that your “tournament winnings” won’t be nearly enough to unlock them in a reasonable timeframe simply because the sheer amount of gold you get from PvP is far inferior to that you can get from playing some blob vs enviroment.

But by all means, there were locked skills in GW1s pvp aswell.

khani.4786:

butch.8136:

and completely kitten pvp players?

Why would you only do PvP in a game that has so much more?

Are there people that only did PvP in GW1?….oh wait yeah you could make a PvP only character. Seems boring to me, but to each their own. Maybe they’ll bring that change too at some point that if someone wants to do nothing but PvP they can make a character that cannot leave the PvP area but has everything unlocked traitwise.

Why would you run champ trains in queensdale in a game that has so much more?

If someone wants to only PvP then they should be able to do so, forcing a portion of the community to participate in content they don’t enjoy or find meaningfull is just absurd.

Also, did you actually try the pvp in GW1? It doesn’t quite sound like you did.

Anything that brings me closer to playing a panic/Clumsiness mesmer is good enough for me.

Lupanic.6502:

The player base is so low because of the leak of gamemodes and balance . Bring new gamemodes and you have more players. Make fights more fun (balance ) and the player base grows

All they have to do is make pvp provide a reward that can be used in PvE or WvW and you will see an influx of players.

You clearly haven’t tried PvP if you deem PvE unrewarding in terms of actual gains

Olli.6137:

General Balance:
- Being able to dodge while immobilized

Well, no.

Lordrosicky.5813:

lol @ who holds close. Dude, in this game you can’t afford to have 1 person afk on close. So clueless

It is a common missconception that to hold a point you have to stand ontop of the colorful circle at all times, I see that you share this delusion.

bhagwad.4281:

There are classes like the decap engi solely meant to prevent you from capping the point. They’re not out to kill you. To counter this, you need one other person.

While this is true you’re not encountering one in every single game, doubtful if its even in half of the games. It is also possible to push the engineer off the point aswell, you may not cap it alone against him, but you can prevent him from capping it aswell, thus the point is still locked down.

bhagwad.4281:

This is hilarious in soloq. Without prior discussion, everyone assumes that someone else will go help. And therefore nobody comes to help. It’s the diffusion of responsibility that’s also responsible for phenomena like a woman being molested in broad daylight without anyone intervening. Everyone’s waiting for someone else to take action.

Evidently we have different experiences in soloqueue then, your asumption that this is a phenomena that occurs every single time that verbal communication did not take place initially is simply false.

It boils down to a players understanding of the game and his or her surroundings..
Funnily enough tho my experience is the exact opposite of yours; In most of my games it usually ends up with too many rushing off to help and thus leaving another point wide open. In the end however anecdotals mean absolutely nothing.

bhagwad.4281:

There’s a reason why teamspeak is far more efficient for coordination instead of just relying on “body language” etc. We want to maximize our chances of winning and have as few barriers as possible. For that verbal communication goes a long way.

Perhaps the issue in this case was the way in which you attempted to initiate the dialogue at hand? The way in which your 1man discussion in the chat started it would appear as if you went for the “I’m going mid I said first” approach, might’ve caused them to perceive you as one of those “play it my way or I afk” people.. normally they get ignored in solo queue. Granted I may be wrong here, just that is how it appears to me.

Ofcourse a voicechat would be the most beneficial, but that is highly unreasonable to expect in soloqueue i’d say.

Matisse.9356:

…and I think your solution is exactly the problem many newbies are experiencing when it comes to mesmers. Against mesmers, targetting needs to be precise and quick, which is a hard skill to master on its own.

Which then boils down to the player just needing to practice against the class more, the class itself is not OP.

bhagwad.4281:

It’s not enough to know what role you intend to play. Unless you broadcast your intentions, it’s entirely possible for someone else to also try and fulfill the same role thereby leading to a waste of teammates if that role only requires one person to do it. This is particularly true if there are two people of the same class in the team (which is almost always).

Yes you are absolutely correct, on occasion you will wind up with people who have similiar roles in the team, luckily enough there is actually room for more than 1.

At this time it also comes down to 1 simple thing: Adaption. Theres exceptions ofcourse.. no team has any use for 4 thieves.

bhagwad.4281:

Like someone above mentioned, you often waste seconds running up to the treb only to find a mesmer or a thief already there when they never talked about their intentions pre match. There are a whole lot of other similar issues.

So don’t run out first. If you have a mesmer on your team.. asume that he has blink, if he seems to be running towards the trebuchet, dont go towards it yourself. You lose at best 2 seconds by doing this and you eradicate the problem you’re describing. Stop and observe.

bhagwad.4281:

Or if as a close holder, I want someone to come with me to close on Foefire at the start to ensure the cap. How is one to know all this without prior communication? Telepathy?

If you’re capping close on Foefire you should have a build that lets you ATLEAST hold off 2 people for abit, thus while you fight for control over your home, you get a numerous advantage on the graveyard, once the battle on Graveyard is determined(before it is capped) you should be able to have gotten the reinforcements you need.

Nowhere did I say you weren’t allowed to ask for help or that communication wasn’t necessary, all I said was that in the matches I’ve played people have had the sense to stop, observe and react according to how the situation pans out. If you want 2 to go Home at the start, then by all means, say so.

bhagwad.4281:

Coordinated teams are better than un coordinated ones. This is hardly rocket science.

One can coordinate without verbal or vocal communication, calling out losses because people don’t respond before the battle is quite frankly.. moot.

Lukin.4061:

I also never understood this lack of communication – there is probably a 20% chance that 1 person talks at start, never had 4 or 5 people in team that actually all talk about what they are going to do, what is happening in their field of view.

I’ve had everyone actively participate in the matchsetup countless of times but I think it boils down to afew things:

The “Solo mid” or “I Carry” who immediatly upon joining announce that ‘I am doing this and hence expect you to obide to my plan, else you are by default a horrible player while I am without blame.’

Most PvPers know their build pretty well, they know what role it plays in the match and where it will be moderately useful so they intend to put it to use in that position immediatly rather than talk about it.

You then have the people who is trying to follow the horrendous PvP guides on these forums and use these as a beacon, it is pretty much written exactly what is expected of them and they intend to do exactly that and nothing else.

And ofcourse: The prematch ragers, either your team or the opposing teams composition is in his mind, de facto much better. This leads to the match already being lost and you’re likely to find him being either being VERY vocal throughout the match, raging about anything that does not go his way. Alternatively he will be the silent rager, in which case hes just going to go bunker down on a point and tab out or go afk.

But overall, theres only 1 gamemode and from what I’ve observed in my own matches is that we can communicate just fine without any talking at the start.

google.3709:

Progression felt too slow, specially for those who played casually!
a dedicated loyal PvP player would have taken some crazy ammount of time (like 5 years) to achieve rank 80!

Now they made it so it’s realistic for casual/Hotjoin heroes to progress faster and
Catch up with those loyal dedicated duumb players who actually spent thousands of hours actually playing games for which they were not rewarded for!

It was apparent all along that the rank system would recieve an increase in gain.. IMO people should’ve seen this coming and waited with ranking up. They chose to invest time and thats their own fault.

PetricaKerempuh.7958:

maybe i wasn’t clear. i apologize guys and thanks for actually going for it constructively…

thiefs problem = stealth
mesmer problem = clone spaming

not fun. i believe you guys can deal with those things, but for me to go in a game and start a fight with those two professions is just… not fun:D

Clones are absolutely no problem, locate the real mesmer, kill him, ignore the clones.

Joseph.7213:

They’re trying to push players into playing all aspects of their game. I understand that and those that WvW and sPvP will be happy, but strictly sPvP players have been shafted.

What would you strictly sPvP players want for rewards? Because there is no gear progression in sPvP, there cannot be gear rewards other than cosmetics – and from what I gather nobody here gives a kitten about it. So, leaderboards that work, and what else?

Well for starters, theres a ton of pve items we cant get from pvping so why not throw that around.. make a reward that you can use in PvE but that is exclusively obtained within PvP and make it HARD to get and by HARD I don’t mean “herpskitten click open 419081 boxes of pvpness” but something that takes actual effort and isn’t based on RNG.

Forming a champ train, heart of the mists, rotation will be team arena – solo arena – hotjoin.

I’ve read that thread and I honestly believe that it is exaggerating things quite abit but there is definitly something wrong in the fields of balance right now.

However I dont disagree with you in regards of the sheer damage output thieves can perform right now, partly I’d say this is because of how their skills work.. Whereas everyone else sits with cooldown, thieves get the possibility to dish out obscene amounts of damage in a very limited timeframe.. Something probably has to be done, but I feel that it is the combination of both massive burst aswell as fantabulous mobility and escapes that makes for the sillyness we’re currently seeing.

Personally I can take down both bunker guardians(Given enough time.. an odd 5-15minutes or so) and thieves(most of the time), but in return in tpvp my build falls absolutely to pieces when its up against engineers, to some extent even rangers.. it is a deliberate choice I’ve made tho and if I can beat a thief and have him rage at me in pm afterwards that is good enough for me.

dylan.5409:

Game would be more fun, across multiple game modes, without those 2 proff’s
seriously
Then the rest they can “balance”

Yes it would, we could have spirit rangers duking it out over 30minute battles with bunker guardians, engis and warriors all while the elementalists stand nearby and look upon them in awe as they slowly melt away in the sun.

No really, play a mesmer or thief yourself for abit, playing from your opponents perspective is an amazing method for finding out the weaknesses they have and what the flaws with their profession is.

Zylonite.5913:

Well there is always exceptions…..GW2 is not one of those though.

So we’ll be able to conclude that you are either:
- Able to see the future
- Having access to some insider information
- Guessing.

Personally I suspect that you’re purely guessing and thus acting as a doomsday advocate.

Zylonite.5913:

But the graph will not raise upward forever…

You know who’d disagree with you? C C P.

Vol.7601:

Lue.6538:

Kratos.6293:

There are many top tier MMORPGs coming out this year

1. EverQuest Next
2. Wildstar
3. The Elder Scrolls Online
etc

Does Guild wars 2 even stand a chance ? What do you think Arenanet should do to retaliate ?

Theres enough people to actually play all 4, they are also vastly different games and will attract different playertypes.

as for ESO: A game that before launch promotes itself as a “play it the way you want to” game and then proceeds with locking players out unless they invest an excess amount of cash into the collectors edition, then proceeds with adding on an ingame shop that according to statements will be purely for “fluff” (but will inevitably, and we all know it, contain a fancy upgrade to the CE); They then proceed with throwing together a very interesting PvP outdoor zone but then again, mess that up by adding a bonus that will in PvP grant the players who bought the CE a seriously unfair advantage.

So what we’re looking at is a game that is buy to play with a subscription model combined with an ingame shop built upon an engine that provides you with features that are barely good enough for a game from 2005.

Didn’t they lock out a race unless you got that edition too? Imperials?

That is correct. With the imperial race they also lock out an entire racial skill line from players, thus their statement of players chosing how to play without limitations falls flat on its face, which it already did with their implementation of classes.

But enough ESO bashing, these impending doom threads are getting tedious and I’m certain GW2 will be around for a long time yet.

zMajc.4659:

/offtopic

Lue.6538:

Well among other things, there are quite a bunch of elitist jerks that prefer only 80s in dungeons, thus shutting players out of dungeons and FOTM.

I’d never, ever play with anyone under lvl 80 in FOTM, if you would you haven’t played fractals alot.

and the first part of that sentence is entirely your choice but when you add that anyone who would hasn’t played enough fractals you’re simply posing a logical fallacy and that doesn’t quite hold up so it all kinda becomes moot.

But for your sake, it is entirely up to you wether or not you want to play with sub 80s in FOTM, I do on occasion, I don’t quite care. Granted you do have to drop down to an easier tier to make it work, but I’ve ran FOTM10 with people whos been lvl 2 and it has worked just fine.
Like I said, your own choice tho, personally I would never join a group who rejected a player based upon their level or gear.

Nabuko Darayon.9645:

Go do the frikin Hearts/DE’s/Explroe the World! WHy is everyone so obsessed with getting to lvl 80 with tomes/crafting. Even if you get it to 80 you still need Waypoints to move around

Well among other things, there are quite a bunch of elitist jerks that prefer only 80s in dungeons, thus shutting players out of dungeons and FOTM.
Also please consider that some of us have several 80s already from regular leveling, at some point it just gets boring to repeatedly complete the same zones and then leveling to 80 as quickly as possible to begin with something more interesting might be preferable