Guild Wars 2

Reposting this from your other thread on the same subject.

Mammoth.1975:

I can see the differences between wvw and private server fights for sure, but if you’re genuinely about 5v5 vs other skilled groups, the private server idea is solid despite those differences. Easy way to get people who want to fight together, and you can adjust the settings so that it’s effectively TDM. For example, just change the respawn timer to 2 minutes, making 5v5 the only way to win, and keeping dead people out of that 5v5 for a long time. 2 minutes could even be too long, you can get to a lot of places on a wvw map much faster than that.

I can see the differences between wvw and private server fights for sure, but if you’re genuinely about 5v5 vs other skilled groups, the private server idea is solid despite those differences. Easy way to get people who want to fight together, and you can adjust the settings so that it’s effectively TDM. For example, just change the respawn timer to 2 minutes, making 5v5 the only way to win, and keeping dead people out of that 5v5 for a long time. 2 minutes could even be too long, you can get to a lot of places on a wvw map much faster than that.

Thuggernaut.1250:

pvp is basically unplayable as a warrior because of mesmers and elementalists. they are everywhere and basically unkillable as a warrior. when you down them, they have skills that allow them to disappear and revive themselves with pretty much 100% effectiveness.
…
is there some magical technique that i am somehow not grasping, because everytime i down a Mesmer/elementalist, and start to “FINISH THEM”, they just disappear. and then pop up out of nowhere again, alive and well. is this how the game is meant to be played? because if so, might as well just roll a mesmer

Thuggernaut.1250:

and just to give everyone some background, i was very big on alliance battles back in gw1, as wa/mo

When the mesmer disappears, wait for him to reappear. There will be a clone as well. The clone will appear first. The mesmer will have a downed player symbol above him.

Elementalists don’t disappear. You can see the mist form. Chase the mist form. Stomp when the mist form ends.

It sounds like the reason you’re not enjoying the game is because you’re losing due to a lack of experience. If you practice a bit, you may find you enjoy it more. Still potentially good feedback for anet, seems like the mesmer/warrior matchup between new players is still as lopsided as it ever was.

I’d like to see this. Dunno how you resolve queueing with 2-4 people though.

Depends on your current power.

Losing something in translation here I guess. I can’t tell if you’re saying you dodge all their autoattacks or something else, and you don’t seem to be understanding what I’m looking for either.

To clarify, I’m looking for a build that does it particularly well. For example, on my necro, I beat a lot of BM guys by just kiting the pet over spectral wall, and condi specs lack a little because putting condis on me improves my heal and gives me transfer fuel, improving my damage.

So I’m looking for a build that is strong against necros. I play necro, and I know that the two classes that have the potential to be the most challenging for me are ranger and ele. Since there are so many new necros around at the moment, mostly playing 30/30/10, I’m looking for something to play that really takes them apart.

I’ve put something together, and it certainly does the job, I’m just looking for some input on the build from more experienced rangers. If there’s a possibility of making necro hunting even easier, or gaining some more general utility without giving up the ability to eat necros, I’d definitely love to hear about it.

So here’s what I have so far:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQJAVTjEVF2JW+Vg2Bi1D9s/B1ekJJhJWBFVwnK-ToAA1CtIMSZkzIjRSjsGNKYVA

What should be changed?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magnetic_Wave
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phoenix
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ether_Renewal
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleansing_Fire
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Water
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleansing_Wave
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Rain
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleansing_Water
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleansing_Wave_
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Evasive_Arcana
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stop_Drop_and_Roll

Seriously, you have to be trolling right? You play an ele. You can remove 6 conditions from yourself and 3 from allies near you every 10 seconds without even touching your bar.

If you want to complain about being forced into arcane I’m totally with you. If you want to complain about having to bring condition removal to remove conditions, not so much.

Once random people have sold off the old stock they had sitting around that they were never going to use, and once people stop getting daily achievement point chests and start having to actually earn 500 achievement points to get those badges, the supply will thin out a bit. There will still be more around than there used to be, but less than you’re seeing right now.

That’s my guess anyway, don’t take it as investment advice :P

Seems like a pretty measured response. I’m yet to see teams adapt in any significant way to the necro buffs though.

Necro still does no damage with a water ele in the area. Fear still lasts half a second base with melandru runes on the target. Rangers are still strong against necros if they choose to spec that way. Yet I have seen very few eles or rangers being played, and about two guys wearing melandru runes. Half the rangers I have seen have been BM anyway, and most of the eles have been air over water.

I have seen a few stance hammer warriors running around though, so that’s something.

Engis have plenty of reason to complain when necros get buffs, as they both compete for the same spot on a team most of the time. I think Lordrosicky made a good point regarding that. In this case thieves also have good reason imo, as they should be able to engage enemy glass condition guys with a degree of confidence, but they just can’t right now, they’ve lost that role to warriors.

Everyone else has the tools to adapt. I don’t know whether bunker guards can adapt successfully, but I haven’t seen a single serious attempt yet. Everyone is still running shelter shout shout sanc soldiers.

The only real impact the necro buffs seem to have had on the meta is a whole lot more bad necros running around. If the players don’t take necros seriously enough to act, why would anet?

Not sure what you’re trying to say.

That list is meaningless, just like every previous attempt. A proper tier list is compiled from win percentages, not votes. If the majority of these forums were good enough at the game to be able to tell which classes are OP, well, the forums would be a lot quieter, due to the lack of ‘omgnerf x’ threads.

Remember when the spvp forum was drowning in 100 blades tears? I do. Warriors would have topped the tier list by miles had someone compiled it then.

In fact, I think the spvp forum hivemind is so hopeless at assessing balance that if mesmers smashed everyone except guardians, but a guardian on the other team made having a mesmer like playing 4v5, mesmers would easily top the tier list despite seeing zero play and zero wins if they did get played accidentally.

As much as it pains me to say it, spectral wall is probably too strong. I really think it was a good move to give a ward to a non-guardian class, but with our ranged dps, it’s a whole different story to a guardian ward.

In tournaments I apply 4.5k armour ignoring condition damage with each autoattack chain, taking 2 seconds to complete casting. When dhuumfire is up, that becomes 8k, and will need to be cleared.

So they have to cleanse 2 seconds in, then vs melee, GS phantasms, BM hunters, shatters, etc, I can just hide behind spectral wall for 8 seconds, dodge rolling across it if they blink/shadowstep/walk around/whatever. That’s 4 autoattack chains, 18k damage applied, and they’ve already used one cleanse. By this time, dhuumfire is back up, and my next auto chain is another 8k.

That’s 34k applied with autoattack plus one other skill, and zero terror ticks. During that time, some builds have had all of 4 seconds to do any real damage to me.

There are a few professions out there whose tournament viable builds just don’t have answers to a necro atm. Anything that needs to get themselves or their pets next to you is already in trouble. Anything with long cooldowns on their condition removal is already in trouble. The only thing you can really lose to that has both of those problems is a stance warrior.

Not that 1v1 is meaningful, but considering how much pressure we put on the other team, spectral wall really narrows down the options they have to put pressure on us in turn. Eles and some ranger builds are still a PITA, and stance warriors are annoying too, but otherwise, you often find yourself freecasting, which has never been good news for the other team, and is even worse now with dhuumfire. Especially since there is so little drawback to speccing GC now.

However, until people start start to give up their crappy rockdogs for melandru runes, or start running a mix of 2 or more eles, wars, and rangers in their teams, you can’t say the meta has adapted in any meaningful way to the necro changes, so nerfs are probably premature. If you have a berserker stance hammer warrior sitting on the necro all game, that necro isn’t going to do a lot. Of course, it’s quite rare to find a melee guy who really knows how to sit on someone, they tend to be easily distracted after the first kill and start chasing mesmers and bunkers around like they’re in a benny hill episode.

No respawns? Waiting for cooldowns between rounds?

One random guy and 4 of these guys:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQBJAaBA

I left a few spots blank so you can tailor to your preference.

I think I see what you mean now. The damage is too low for a 600 range weapon. I agree with that for sure. There are multiple ways to fix that, and your preference is a damage buff, which is obviously reasonable but I think still leaves it in an awkward spot for pvp. You can’t give a 600 range weapon melee damage, but a 600 range power weapon is always going to force you to position yourself on the front line.

Gutbuster.8745:

Softspoken.2410:

Alright, as for the actual thread: Axe currently makes more sense at 600 range: it’s a ‘near-melee’ option, so you’re close, but you don’t have to literally stick to your target like with dagger.

I honestly think they could afford to up the damage. IIRC, the direct-damage of the scepter 1 chain matches (exceeds?) the damage of axe 1, while having 300 more range and applying some fundamental conditions.

Edit: Axe isn’t a keep-away weapon, like Ranger longbow or Mesmer greatsword. It’s a chasing weapon.

Edit2: Nevermind, Axe still does more direct damage if you ignore the conditions inflicted by both weapons. Not so sure now if they should up it’s damage. I think so, but I need to do a more stringent examination.

I believe someone did some fairly extensive testing on Axe vs Scepter in a power build quite some time ago (as in last year) and that showed the scepter doing more total damage then the axe even at 0 condition damage.

Just for the heck of if I went to the mist just and with no traits allocated but with zerker ammy and divinity runes it took ~34 seconds to kill the heavy golem using axe auto (no #2) and ~30 seconds just with scepter auto.

Clearly that could do with more extensive testing but still, axe is still under performing for a power weapon which is a shame because I really like axe. But as someone else said life force gain should really be moved to the auto. I personally don’t mind the 600 range either, would 900 be nice, well yes but I’d much rather see the power of it getting boosted and/or cleave being added.

That’s a result of base condition damage being so high relative to scaling. Axe definitely does not underperform as a power weapon in terms of dps. Unless you’re comparing it to melee range options.

Cosmic Sparklejunk.3514:

Strike up the cries of, “it doesn’t matter!” or “Actually the male term covers everyone!” that happen every time someone points out or questions the male as default phenomenon.

Right on cue.

Normally I’d agree with you, but in this case the term is in fact gender neutral. For example, one of Elizabeth IIs titles is Lord of Mann.

Started happening to me in the last couple of days too.

Axe damage would be quite high as a 900 range power weapon. 600 range is a problem because you need to get on point to hit their backline, effectively making you a melee guy with ranged damage.

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

The maximum critical chance/damage I can get is 55/69 , which isn’t high enough ( not tempting ). http://tinyurl.com/qeztlzz

That’s fine, I’m just pointing out that attack speed doesn’t affect how much crits improve your dps, except in a very slight way with procs.

Not much needs to change tbh.

Fees for customs would be a good option. 1silver an hour is actually pretty high for an activity whose only source of income is the odd dye though.

Anytime someone changes their server to standard with no water map I immediately favourite it, so yeah, I think there’s a market. I’d also pay for 5v5 with only tourney maps in the rotation. Not that I have anything against spirit watch I just don’t see any point to 5v5 on it right now.

Precision and critical damage have nothing to do with your attack speed btw, aside from effects that proc on crits. I know that’s counterintuitive for a lot of people though.

If you attack once per second for 200 damage, you are doing 200 dps.
If you attack twice per second for 100 damage each, you are still doing 200 dps.

Now let’s say your crits do 200% damage, and we give you 100% crit chance.
In the first example, you would be attacking once per second for 400 damage, equalling 400 dps.
In the second example, you would be attacking twice per second for 200 damage. 2×200= 400 dps still.

People seem to understand that faster attacks = more crits but forget that bigger attacks = bigger crits. I’m not sure if that’s it, but I remember people having trouble with the concept way back on the wow forums.

Rune of air seems pretty good for a guy with 4k power and a giant target painted on his face.

I maxed it right away. I like the design a lot. Large groups can already spike build siege just fine, but small groups need to more often, and this lets them.

BTW, if we’re just talking about fun factor and not balance, the map is pure win. I was laughing so hard my gf could hear me from the other end of the house.

TGSlasher.1458:

Allie Murdock.8152:

We talk to players of all skill levels. We closely monitor these forums, on top of what Jonathan said in SotG. As mentioned earlier, it’s not uncommon for devs to discuss these things in-game as well.

This may be surprising to some of you, but we’re capable of judging objective vs subjective feedback. It’s ingrained in our minds to analyze feedback this way (that is, after all, a huge part of a Quality Assurance testers job). It’s part of the process in game development.

It might not seem this way sometimes, but we definitely hear you.

steps back into the shadows

So … does anyone from Anet ever play from Australia or other such lag rich countries to see how they could improve certain skills. For example, Ride the Lightning (/D air 4 on elementalist). With the nerfs to this skill (40 sec cd if you miss) you hardly ever have a 20 sec cd on this skill due to it missing due to lag. There are many other examples of lag affecting the game and skills as well.

In the end, just wondering if any of you have personal experience with how the lag affects the game, or if you have “players” from Aus in you band of buddies.

Thanks in advanced, an Australian player who deals with the lag everyday.

They get plenty of feedback from SEA players with high latency. Quite a lot of them play on the server that was the main korean server and also had/has quite a few players from hong kong and japan.

I’m aussie myself and the lag has definitely gotten worse over the last six months, to the point of unplayability at times, but there has been some improvement in the last month or so. I can actually pvp more often than not now.

BTW there are quite a lot of players in the top 100 from outside the US, so it’s not completely terminal to your pvp chances, just really kittening annoying.

It really isn’t anything to do with modifying your build. I have 4 necros, each with a different build, that’s my ‘template’ hack.

The problem is that the map turns CC skills (or passive traits) into instagibs. I don’t have a problem with it on ground level, where if you die to anything but a stealthed pull, it is indeed a positioning problem. The cannon room on the other hand is a mess. That would be fine if controlling or contesting the cannon wasn’t absolutely mandatory due to its strength.

You don’t even need a larger cannon area, you could put a second floor below it with some way back up, so that knockbacks and fears still buy you more time, but not a whole kills worth of time.

For those who haven’t been down there, if you survive the fall to ground level, the wurms hit for 12k+ and are invulnerable. I haven’t found any way back up except to suicide on them.

Just be careful trying to dark path if there is glass anywhere near your target. 3 times I’ve died to that already. Slow learner I guess.

First time it teleported me onto the glass behind my target, the other two it failed to cross the glass between us.

The rest of the map is actually great btw, if it weren’t for the power of the cannon and the design of the cannon room making it all about instagibs. Even the jump pads, although still troublesome with any latency, perform much better than the sky pirates or dragonball ones.

Heizero.9183:

All i can say is if you are getting run off edges by a single fear then you were HORRIBLY out of position and earned your long way down.

You don’t need to be run off the edge, just onto the glass while feared. And once again, I can fear you off the edge with a single fear from literally anywhere in that room unless I simply cannot move behind you (hello doorhugging). 4 seconds gives you plenty of time to run over the edge.

If you stun me I fear you for 4s. If you break it, I fear you for 2s. If you break it, I fear you for 3s. If you bring 3 stunbreaks, you’re going to be kitten ed when you find out you don’t have time to use the third before you’re falling.

That’s before we talk about spectral wall locking you into a tiny corner so you can’t even dodge. Or flesh golem charge as soon as you enter the cannon room bouncing cannon users right out to the very end of the platform, perfectly lined up for an instant doom. At least I have to press 3 keys for that, unlike the zero button multigib I mentioned before.

How good is your positioning against the thief who shadow refuges behind the wall then enters cannon and scorpion wires you onto the glass? Skill play right there, a hard fought contest but the better man won. It’s really hard, but there’s a little trick you can do to win fights instantly when people are burning through stunbreaks every five seconds. It only works on this map. I call it ‘proccing your nightmare rune’. Do not attempt if you are not pro.

It’s not a skill map, it’s a cheese map. It’s good for laughs, casual fun, that’s all.

Heizero.9183:

Mammoth.1975:

Heizero.9183:

You don’t have to rely on cannon to win. honestly. it can only focus 1 point and 75% of the time it is focusing B.

I like your thinking.

‘Just let them have mid guys, take far. Rambostyle!’

Oh, except that 75% of the time it is focusing where you’re pressuring if you’re not vsing semiconscious droolers, and it takes 22 seconds to run to far from your spawn with swiftness, and 6 from theirs. I guess cannon is pretty bad if you’re a semiconscious drooler though.

‘Wait, it turns?!?’

You have a team of 5 for a reason.

Good thing they don’t. Wait, what?

I like it. I’m a necro, if I have to 1v1 a warrior with the new berserker stance, I need a new team. This gives warriors a role to play, no question. Conditions making your bunker sad? Apply berserker stance to the affected area.

It doesn’t guarantee the outcome anyway, with necro damage in the state it is in. I’ve beaten a few warriors who popped it today. I think a lot of that is that most haven’t quite caught on to the fact that it leaves me with no gap openers because it makes them immune to my CC for the duration. So they are still playing carefully when they pop it instead of going full attack.

Heizero.9183:

You don’t have to rely on cannon to win. honestly. it can only focus 1 point and 75% of the time it is focusing B.

I like your thinking.

‘Just let them have mid guys, take far. Rambostyle!’

Oh, except that 75% of the time it is focusing where you’re pressuring if you’re not vsing semiconscious droolers, and it takes 22 seconds to run to far from your spawn with swiftness, and 6 from theirs. I guess cannon is pretty bad if you’re a semiconscious drooler though.

‘Wait, it turns?!?’

Julius.1094:

Mammoth.1975:

Julius.1094:

Mammoth.1975:

Heizero.9183:

I won a few actually because they constantly had 2-3 players guarding and firing cannon all game which made it very easy for me and the other roamer to keep control of outside nodes.

Numbers, not feelings.

Numbers from one player in regards to a “few matches” might as well be feelings given how unlikely they are to represent overall trends. The cannon can only fire at one spot at the time, and I’ve found that if i start moving right away and use a dodge, i got out of the area most of the time. If they’re heavily invested in holding cannon just spread out and ninja cap them using your greater on ground numbers and move out of the cannon. But yeah it’s a big advantage, so if the other team has it fight over it? I don’t see the problem.

The problem, for those too slow to pick it up last time I mentioned it, is that ‘stack stability and hug that kittening door harder’ is not tactical genius.

As far as numbers from one player, they’re better than numbers from none. I’ve seen the team who dominated at cannon lose once so far. I can’t imagine why that would be, the cannon is pretty bad right? 6s recharge on an unblockable undodgable 2s knockdown that does 10k damage and has a radius twice the size of a control point.

That’s cute how you only quoted half my post and left out the half where I said the claim counter knockbacks is just “hug that kittening door harder” is a very silly oversimplification of what is skillful positioning. I’m sorry someone outplayed you and knocked you out of the map a few times and hurt your feelings.

On and the cannon can’t be dodged because there is a ground animation for where it will hit and you can run out of it, if you can see that animation AND can dodge it on the spot good players will almost never get hit by it. I know I wouldn’t. Then why bother having it? It won’t be used.

Ugh, you haven’t read anything. You leave the door, you will die. Once again, for the very, very slow.

Start casting knock. Change direction for half a second. GG. You can’t dodge them all.

I just run trollspec on there with reaper’s protection and 100% fear duration. There is nowhere in the room that you can knock me from without being feared off the edge or through the floor unless you’re jammed up against that door. Stunbreak, man cannon. Zero button multikills take skill.

Positioning is super important guys, it’s all about positioning!

Julius.1094:

Mammoth.1975:

Heizero.9183:

I won a few actually because they constantly had 2-3 players guarding and firing cannon all game which made it very easy for me and the other roamer to keep control of outside nodes.

Numbers, not feelings.

Numbers from one player in regards to a “few matches” might as well be feelings given how unlikely they are to represent overall trends. The cannon can only fire at one spot at the time, and I’ve found that if i start moving right away and use a dodge, i got out of the area most of the time. If they’re heavily invested in holding cannon just spread out and ninja cap them using your greater on ground numbers and move out of the cannon. But yeah it’s a big advantage, so if the other team has it fight over it? I don’t see the problem.

The problem, for those too slow to pick it up last time I mentioned it, is that ‘stack stability and hug that kittening door harder’ is not tactical genius.

As far as numbers from one player, they’re better than numbers from none. I’ve seen the team who dominated at cannon lose once so far. I can’t imagine why that would be, the cannon is pretty bad right? 6s recharge on an unblockable undodgable 2s knockdown that does 10k damage and has a radius twice the size of a control point.

Heizero.9183:

I won a few actually because they constantly had 2-3 players guarding and firing cannon all game which made it very easy for me and the other roamer to keep control of outside nodes.

Numbers, not feelings.

Heizero.9183:

Mammoth.1975:

Heizero.9183:

Mammoth.1975:

It doesn’t really have anything to do with positioning. You just stack your team with CC+Stab and ignore positioning.

If you are positioned well, what is the CC going to accomplish? just going to end up sacrificing sustain and damage for nothing.

You can’t avoid them all, the guy with stability can.

Besides, how hard is ‘hug the door like it’s a long lost lover’ anyway? You’re going to die if you’re standing anywhere else in the cannon room, no question.

Start casting knock, switch direction for one moment, boom headshot. Pr0.

The Cannon room is not the whole map. i agree the fights there can turn pretty chaotic. My suggestion is allow the cannon to be evaded/blocked/invuln and you will see alot less of the chaotic cannon fights going on because it won’t be enarly as important after it is toned down. instead of saying the map ins un-playable in competitive tournaments look at ways that it can be.

The cannon room is the whole map actually. If you can’t figure out why, use the data instead. Count your win/loss when you control the cannon, compare to when you don’t.

Heizero.9183:

Mammoth.1975:

It doesn’t really have anything to do with positioning. You just stack your team with CC+Stab and ignore positioning.

If you are positioned well, what is the CC going to accomplish? just going to end up sacrificing sustain and damage for nothing.

You can’t avoid them all, the guy with stability can.

Besides, how hard is ‘hug the door like it’s a long lost lover’ anyway? You’re going to die if you’re standing anywhere else in the cannon room, no question.

Start casting knock, switch direction for one moment, boom headshot. Pr0.

It doesn’t really have anything to do with positioning. You just stack your team with CC+Stab and ignore positioning.

Bring moar guardians.

Not particularly balanced for tourneys, but it’s a fun map when everyone is just goofing around. CC effects are bad enough without making them all oneshot people.

Of the 3, earth is going to make you toughest imo. I wouldn’t rule out forge though.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

You know, there’s a thread in the necro forum asking how conditionmancers should deal with classes that have heavy condition cleanses. The response is basically “layer up conditions during fear, or die”.

The fact is that the game isn’t balanced around 1 vs 1. There will always be a class who is best at 1 vs 1. Whether it is the Thief who pops in and out of stealth and resets fights indefinitely when they don’t burst you down. The mesmer, who is nigh impossible to damage while interrupting and bursting you down. The necromancer, who has statistical bulk and high damaging stuns + conditions to wear you down. The engineer, who can kite you endlessly while laying down high direct + condition damage with grenades. The guardian, who’s cleansing and protection uptime make them impossible to kill. The ranger, who solos you with the pet while dodging and evading everything you throw at them.

I’ve heard it all, trust me. The only class I’ve never heard as being “overpowered” is the elementalist. Even though warriors suck now, there was a time when they were top tier due to bulls rush + frenzy + 100 blades killing people instantly.

I’ll fix that for you, since I’m of the opinion that ele has been the strongest tourney class in the game for about 8 months now. Just by a little, for a variety of reasons.

Yeah it’s definitely harder to land on anyone who isn’t trying to melee you than a mark. It’s quite a long delay. The only reason I commented was because I had actually forgotten myself just how big it was and was reminded by a video I watched yesterday.

I’m kind of with you on this Archer. I think the spectral wall change was introduced to give necros a little more play against thieves with the extra peel, and something like that was definitely needed to stop that outcome from being quite so fast and certain. I also think that giving necros a ward was a good call, although doubling (or even tripling for double necro comps) the amount of wards you’re likely to see in a game definitely has a big impact on melee viability.

My real issue with it is that I now feel pretty safe. All the time. I don’t feel as much need to know where the enemy thief is at all times anymore. Spectral wall buys me more time than a thief can usually afford to spend near me. Only very mobile thieves can put me under anything like the pressure I used to face from them. Then again, I’ve only vsed one really good thief since I started playing again.

The radius is huge, the size of a greater mark. The animation is small. I don’t remember if it used to look different, but I guess it probably did and got hit in the big particle effect cleanup during beta.