Guild Wars 2

I agree, custom leagues with no lame builds can be very interesting.

It’s not easy because every class has lame builds/utility/traits but would be very interesting creating a no lame meta.

With a template implementation, would be great to add an option to custom arenas to filter builds, so people who want to join that arena, can chose only for a restricted number of (no lame) builds.

Videos are perfect to explain the balance now lol

WB!

Ps can u check Your PM Inbox?

Thx

The best improvement would be if more people were playing in pvp.

A real better balance, new game modes and better rewards are the keys.

Agree, Lich Form #1 is op.

Any change with this patch? (like for example a 60-90s ICD on #6)

All in spvp need to be free.

The cost of new heal too is against the original philosophy of spvp.

Grandine is ok for pve, not for spvp.

Dire Amulet would be very bad for spvp.

I hope anet won’t add it

It sounds really interesting, all points are crucial for pvp in general, but you need to manage them carefully, they can have a huge impact in pvp balance.

Just no.

U can create a bridge between pve/www and spvp simply to add the option to import/export the same skins. U don’t need gear progression, pvp needs skill progression with ladder and tournaments.

These traits need a length and an ICD.

I opened a topic about IA builds, i hope to see to discussion about Passive effects proc (like burning), topic about animations, etc.

War healing signet has already his topic

Hi guys, i’d like to open a discussion about these builds, i think this is one of the worst problem for pvp, especially for spvp.

Why is it a problem?

Because:

1_ Too easy to play and too strong
2_ Very low skill floor
3_ Too much passive effect
3_ They create a big confusion in team fight (it’s not fun to play against and it’s not fun to watch a game where there are X pets involved in a fight).

How to manage these builds?

1_ Eliminate them from spvp
2_ Rework them to be effective only at an initial level and not at higher level. How to do this?
3_ Other suggestions

Let’s go!

Amazing Match, really.

1. Nerf AI/passive builds at beginner level or eliminate them from pvp
2. DivisionS, seasonal rewards and authomatic weekly/monthly tournaments
3. Remove skyhammer from soloqueue
4. More official focused topics about critical problems that need quick fix
5. New game modes for 2-3 players.

Talking about Tpvp/Soloqueue arena

S Tier
Hammer Longbow Warrior/Condi Warrior/Warrior S/A or S/S or A/S + LB
Bunker Guardian

A Tier
Trickery Thief (D/P, S/P)
Spirit Ranger
Bomb/Nade/R Engineer or Bunker Decapper Engi
Necro Condi

B Tier
Mesmer Shatter S/GS

C Tier
S/X Fresh Air Elementalist
Other DPS builds for engi/ranger
other general builds

I read we’ll have in next weeks a new forum section where we can specifically talk about pvp balance.

I’m asking how it will work, i mean, what is the best way (for us and for anet) to talk about critical balance problems and how to fix them fast.

Every class we’ll have a single dedicated topic?
There will be dedicated topic about critical problems?
We’ ll differentiate tpvp/soloqueue from hot join scenario (or WWW too) ?

And in general how to manage the discussion? Personally i like very much how Chris is doing in CDI topics (horizontal and vertical progression) with a general discussion and after that a 3 list of top wanted features.

Basically i think a balance forum is very usefull but it needs to work well to be a very huge tool.

The key is not spread usefull feedbacks and utilize it to fix fast main problems.

Probably a perfect balance is impossible when u add class diversity, but the main goal would be eliminate every cheese utility/traits/build in game and we said this a lot of times (and avoid to add other potential cheese stuff like war healing signet/#3 thief s/d/necro burning etc.)

And balance this game around conquest mode is very hard. Fight on/around a little node doesn’t help in balance prospective.

Totally agree with Dee Jay

But main problem is the easiest build are the strongest build.

Acandis.3250:

Josh Davis.6015:

We’d like to incorporate guilds into the ladder/season system when we come out with it next year, but nothing is very concrete yet. Personally, I think it would be awesome to look at the ladders and see guilds listed rather than individual players. That said, this could pose issues for more casual players who like to ‘team hop’ or pug about.

I’m probably opening myself up to some interesting suggestions, but imagine you’re in-charge of creating the ladder/season system.

• How would you design it?
• How would you incentivize teams to stay together?
• Would you penalize them for splitting?
• What types of rewards would you include for each ‘division’ on the ladder?

Note: I’m talking about futures seasons/ladders, not the current system.

My personal suggestions are the following:

• How would you design it? I would create separate rosters known as Teams. Each team can have 5-10 people (maybe 2-10 later on as 2v2 and 3v3 are added). Each player can be part of 5 different teams. Team Ladders can track each team and its roster. Team MMR or TMMR is calculated per team (has nothing to do with individual stats) so you’re only tracking a team’s progress no matter who is in it.
• How would you incentivize teams to stay together? With seasonal rewards. Basically design the system so each member of the roster only gets the seasonal reward(s) the team achieved if he/she has played at least 10 (this number can be different) games with the team.
• Would you penalize them for splitting? Yes, but not directly. If any player is kicked or leaves a team, he would lose all seasonal rewards he achieved with that team.
• What types of reward would you include for each ‘division’ on the ladder? The simplest thing would be to add capes for both ladders at the end of each season. For example, pretend there will be bronze, silver, and gold divisions for both Team and Solo(/Duo please add duo queue. PLEASE) ladders. Add gold, silver, and bronze capes and make the ones you earn from Team Ladders have a gilded border. These capes should be unique and only obtainable through seasonal rewards in SPvP (WvW and PvE can have their own design). Picture for clarity: http://imgur.com/xUZ5DpR. You could also add a number to represent what season it was acquired in or something, you can figure it out.

Let me know what you think!

It’s a good design imho.

For rewards i’d like to see too:

- unique titles
- unique weapons/armor
- in general unique items/stuff for ladder position.

The good

first part of new reward system, vendor with glory + gold model, gold in hotjoin/soloqueue/tqueue. Pvp Road map in general is very good. Balance changes are moving in the right direction for some aspects but not for others.

The Bad

Balance in general is not very good, old strong classes (expecially warriors) are always better then classes out of meta (elementalist and mesmer) for tournaments queue. Healing signet needs to be reworked and fixed, is too strong now.

Adding trait like diamond skin is not the right way, utility/skill that gives a long invulnerability window is not a good design.

The missing.

A lot of things are in road map and are very good, i hope in new game modes (expecially 2vs2 and 3vs3 format) and PvP ladder + seasons.

An option to see enemy asura model in pvp/www like a human standard model.

Better animations on key skill (like fear on necro) and an icon for passive burning proc (from trait) like incendiary powder.

More options for custom arena and spectator mode (more info on screen).

Necro condition burst is a combination of burning + torment + fear, under terror trait that maximize this combo.

Burning alone is strong but not so strong, burning is very strong when there are other conditions on target, expecially:

burning + confusion + some bleeds stack
burning + fear (on necro) + torment.

Imho main problem is random burning proc from engi/necro trait and the difficulty to read fear animation on necro

Before to nerf something, i’d work on improving animations (fear) and add an icon like incendiary powder, so people can avoid burning damage from random proc.

Josh Davis.6015:

Oh, as a side note, if you haven’t caught the forum post announcing it, next year we’ll be opening up a new Profession Balance sub-forum for the entire game. The Balance team and myself will be a constant presence in the new forum. It will be A LOT easier for us to engage in balance discussion when we don’t keep everything in a vacuum (profession forums).

You can check out the announcement here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Guild-Wars-2-Forum-Moderation-Updates/first

It’s really a good idea, pvp players need for sure a better way to communicate their feedbacks about profs&balance.

Good job

PS Chek your PM inbox Josh (or pvpcommunity mail), new videos for you

- Have you any plans to accelerate balance changes in a bi-weekly format?

- Have you any plans to improve communication with pvp players for balance feedbacks?

- In this poll (http://strawpoll.me/737903/r ) a large part of pvp community (78%) voted to eliminate skyhammer from soloqueue. Do you have any plans to do this?

- Have you any plans to improve soloqueue matchmaking considering which class player uses to not create unbalanced team compositions? What about an account mmr and single mmr for classes?

- How do you want to solve afk and “low rank” players problems?

- Have you any plan to add UI infos for spectators? Like a dynamic counter for people involved in a teamfight and other general usefull infos that can help a spectator to follow better a match.

- IA builds create big problems in pvp, visual problems (too many elements on screen) and balance problem (very strong and easy to play). Have you any plans to limit IA builds only for pve/www and not for spvp or change their effectiveness in spvp?

For many months warrior was out of the meta, now warrior is in meta (or better, warriors ARE the meta) because they have amazing sustain and can do very good pressure with damage/CC/conditions (depends on builds)

But common element for every war builds is always healing signet, i think anet needs to rework healing signet, balancing better passive and active status.

I think with a better balance for healing signet warrior wouldn’t be the beast that is now.

But are we sure that removing glory is a good idea? I like glory + gold design, it protects pvp rewards from massive pve buyers, i have some doubts that make glory the only currency is a good idea.

This deserves to be a song.

I really like this idea, a tournament without LAME stuff.

Do it

Btw for warriors, banning healing signet is enough, but fresh air for Ele too is very powerful with double arcana. No fresh air imho.

Rangers only ban spirit ranger builds, traps and power builds are fine.

And in general ban every IA builds.

Lordrosicky.5813:

The reasons why I dont watch:

1, Battlefield clutter – spirits, pets, minions, clones, turrets, etc etc. Like watching a football match being played with 40 a side and 3 balls.

2, Effects are too pronounced – it is hard to see anything because all the effects are so loud. Like watching a football match on a foggy day.

3, Characters are too small – it is impossible to see anything really with these tiny characters. The first two points really exaggerate this. Like watching ants play a football match.

Solutions:

1, Nerf all AI specs. Make spirits, minions, turrets and phantasms weaker and buff the active parts of these classes if necessary. These specs shouldnt be viable in pvp above a basic level.

2, Reduce all the effects on spells

3, Ban asuras or buff their size like in the super adventure box. The minimum size really should be a small human.

4, Also shrink large norns too. Norn mesmers are frustrating.

Until they fix these issues there wont ever be people wanting to view this game.

Although rewards will help as more people will play (way way more imo) and this will bump up the audience.

I agree, with all of these points. For character size i suggest a general option where, if flagged, people can watch every enemies like a standard human model.

These are general points, in addition, i think conquest mode is really more fun to play instead of watching, because it’s not easy follow the action when the action is splitted in more points at the same time and there are no many screen infos that can help spectators to follow better the match.

I had the experience to cast some gw2 match for national tournaments and it’s really another story when you can chose internally which camera you want to use and which pov you want to follow.

When you have the regia in your hands you can watch the game like you want and this incredibly help in a conquest mode.

There is a real big difference between watching a gw2 conquest mode on twitch and watch the same match in spectator mode.

Very good guide, BTW i think guide like this deserve to stay IN THE GAME , not only in the forum, because not many people read it.

Anet should create tutorial (with simple video too) to show how to play correctly conquest mode in pvp, there is a very lack of infos for new players, this is one of the main problem for pvp community.

I Agree, best livestream so far. And the phone sketch with Justin was really fun

PS Josh, check your pm inbox

I can suggest to check your spam box, i found there my anet email (or gmail promoctions tab if you use it).

BTW it’s only a test, i think Anet use different criteria to chose different guilds (Country, large/medium/small guild population, how much they do WWW/PVP, experience in testing games etc.)

I found the apply form very detailed, very similar when you send a CV to a company

Kirk Williford.2653:

You have to follow the instructions in the email provided and send us a roster list of everyone in your guild whom is interested in the test. From there, we’ll work towards giving you an account so you can download the client.

Ok now it’s clear.

Email sent!

thx 100x

Our guild (Make Your Choices [SAW]) was chosen but i’ve some problem to enter in the new map.

Is it working now? (i think it’s the right time). How can i enter exactly in the new map? It appears in the www menu? (i don’t see it now)

Thx

Many of them sound really interesting but i’m afraid of new skills op and unbalanced.

We’ll see but i prefered to fix the actual meta and broken traits/skills instead to add new stuff (potential unbalanced).

I hope i’m wrong.

I don’t see a good thing to lose in soloqueue and gain money. There is an high risk to see people not interested to win but only to farm money.

It’s acceptable for hot join and team queue instead.

Forsaker.9213:

like i said in ither topic

hotjoins + curent rank system promote brainles farming/spaming/zerging , then on soloque u have 5 ppl caping one point , i respect your opinions guys , my opinion is just diffrent , and if the system change will improve curent state of the game (wich i think willl) i can deal that my time spended doing tournaments to get my rank will be how to say it “removed” , with current state of pvp wicth is on critical level i am up for any change , those changes are big thats why i am looking with optimism for the next monhts and i hope devs will finaly improve pvp. Like i dont care atm abour rank/gear/leeder i want this game to be realy good pvp competetive game with big commiunity , esport?? yes it will come easy when we will get good ppl base and reword/leeder system

This

. How do you want to manage the new crowd pve/www players that want to try tournament queue only to farm gold?(AFK + rank1 problems)

. When glory will go away and gold will be the only currenct in pvp, what stop a pve player to enter in the mist only for shopping and not for playing?

There are a lot of good plans in the blog, only doubts are about ETA.

BTW you are listening us, and it’s a good thing.

MMR too need a lot of improvements to avoid to be in the same game with rank1 players (many new www/pve players) and experience people.

Only one word

Trophy

PVP players want this, a trophy, something of unique to show to other people, something who means "holy crap, this guy has this “trophy” " because he is good at pvp and he/his team won.

So, a trophy can be a lot of things, unique armor, weapons, title, finisher, etc. etc. but the key is best trophy need to be linked to seasons pvp, ladders, and position ad the end of the ladder or automatic daily/weekly/monthly tournaments.

People need to fight for these trophies and they need to be really good and unique.

Healing signet now is too much passive, active option is pratically useless.

I’d make a better balance between active and passive options, so more heal when you active the signet but less heal when it’s passive.

Scaling with healing power.

How much AR do you need to take 1% dmg in 40-49?

50?55?60?

I dunno if infos in wiki are correct now.

@Josh.

This is really good Josh but i think Balance team need a better interaction with pvp players. Balance is crucial in spvp, builds are updated very fast and there are a lot of delicates situations in a conquest game that require a better attention from balance team.

There a lot of bad mechanics in the game and 10th dec balance patch won’t cover all the bad aspects for many classes, so i think balance team need a really better focus on spvp and this game need more quick fix to cover many of these aspects.

Short version:

Bi-weekly targeted fix for spvp

Justin ODell.9517:

Everyone’s MMR was just reset. In the eyes of the matchmaker, you’re all newbies now.

Hey Justin, do you think is possible to add a filter for numbers of tournaments played? We have this parameter in our stats (we have it for every profession we play too) so i think it’s a good parameter to individuate “experience player level in tournament”

It’s better than pvp rank (because if people is r60 skyhammer farmer it doesn’t mean they have experience in tpvp) and this would avoid to put together inexperience people with experience people.

I agree with everything (except with vulnerability change, it’s fine like it is now, 2% is too much and chill and poison are fine too).

Only two things:

- Necro. Imho Necro has too much damage for his survivability and i’m afraid in the next patch this aspect will be more relevant.
- Warrior. I agree with everyone healing signet is OP now and need a little nerf (15-20%) but we need to be carefull to not push warrior away from the meta like in the old months. Now a Warrior is a fake berserker class because with zerker he has a very good survivability and very good damage (Longbow in a conquest mode is a very strong weapon).

I think this doesn’t deserve a fix, it’s not very easy to reach top of the ledge from this way.

It’s a good skill trick.

I think is useless to add new runes/sigil if the alternatives are not at the same level and people continue to use always the same combinations.

Now we have (Speaking about soloqueue/team queue)

Dps: berserk
Pure bunker: cleric
Condi bunker: Settler
pure conditioner: Rabid

These amulets cover 90-95% of every builds, after that we have some Carrion on ranger spirit , valkyrie on Ele and some soldier on war/guardian.

For runes we have:

For every class that has an elite with CD 90s or less: lyssa (op on warrior/thief)
Dps runes: scholar or divinity
Condition runes: undead/nightmare
Shout bunker: Soldier
Condi bunker: Forge (or condition runes).

For sigils, we have more combinations but Sigil of energy/accuracy/force/battle cover 90-95% of dps/bunker build and other 2/3 sigils for condi builds.

Or Anet nerf what we have now or they need to add more power alternatives. Otherwise no one will chose new runes/sigils/amulets.

Perplexity runes are very lame and need a nerf in WWW, Dire stats are too strong for a condi bunker, maybe knight pve stats (tough/power/prec) could be interesting but it’s a risk, like traveler runes (every dps zerk build with very good mobility).

In general every trait that gives completely immunity to something is not a good design, i think these traits should have an ICD.

But the main problem with bunker engi is his kb/kd quantity, i mean other classes can CC lock a target (warrior/necro) but engi has a lot of kb/kd so it’s very easy decap fast a point in a conquest mode.

In general i’ll insert a little immunity after every CC because in this game CC >> breakstun/stab duration for many match up.

ICD90-120s and are fine.

felivear.1536:

Darnis.4056:

We’re the last part of the human centipede that is GW2 Development.
I’d post a bad speedpaint comic I made but probably would get infarcted again.

You show me yours and I’ll show you mine!

Ahahah

Amazing!