Guild Wars 2

This is an issue I’ve suspected for a while, but it’s hard to gather concrete evidence. I’ve noticed it using on-swap sigils in PvE/WvW (doom and energy). After dying and respawning, the on-swap sigils sometimes don’t work until you unequip and re-equip those weapons. Sigil of corruption worked fine. I believe it may have something to do with kits/dying while in a kit/equipping while in a kit, but I could be wrong.

I only see this happen every once in a while. I’ll try to reproduce it and narrow down potential causes.

Slender Khaldran.3297:

we can expect that Anet will react and answer to people : yes or no.

Let’s imagine that they do.

Scenario 1:
Official post saying “yes, the rewards were unacceptable.”
Result: forums rage, even more people bandwagon for S2

Scenario 2:
Official post saying “no, the rewards were fine.”
Result: forums rage, then rage even more when S2 is announced

I’m sure Anet would love to communicate with the WvW community more. Unfortunately, the WvW community makes that impossible most of the time.

If you’re using bombs and nades as a ranged nuker, yes, they’ll feel one-dimensional. The kind of close-range area control you’re describing is more than possible on an engineer, and are actually kind of the specialty of bombs and grenades.

Kits can feel cumbersome at first, but the low cooldowns, instant swapping, and short cast times will make the profession feel like a war machine in time. Alternatively, you can choose a simpler build with one or no kits, and specialize in one or two spectacular effects.

Hit me up in-game if none of this makes sense, I’d be happy to show you what I mean.

WvW uses your character’s regular gear, so if you go there, you’ll be fighting players much more powerful (in terms of stats) than yourselves.

Structured PvP uses a tightly-controlled set of gear that is all free and top-level, so basically everyone is on a level playing field in terms of stats. In that sense, you’re “ready” for PvP, as long as you’re ready to adapt, try new builds, etc.

Howler.7103:

I assume train means they have them set so they are always leveling based on the circle they are running? Is train one person or a group? Is that the most efficient way to level? I ask, since its my 1st char i am not in a rush, but perhaps when i start a new one i would want to go that way. Also, from what i read the fastest way is to up skill and PvP.

Thanks, this information does help. Since really new, i was like hmmmmm people were only ever this mad in GW 1 pre when you opened the gate and did not leave or killed their death farm minions.

In structured PvP, you are automatically level 80 and don’t gain experience. However, you can now buy a consumable there that will give you an instant level when used in PvE. It’s somewhat expensive so I don’t think that’s the fastest way to level—you could probably gain something like one level an hour from PvP alone, assuming you play pretty well and win most of your matches.

The leveling consumable is not character bound, so you can save them up to level a second character (for example, if you decide you don’t want to go through the entire “normal” leveling process again).

Linc.6834:

I don’t know who edits the patch notes. The language is inconsistent all the time. Take a look at the following example copied directly from the last patch notes

Inventions XI—Elixir-Infused Bombs: Scaling with healing power has been increased by 50%.
Zeal VII—Zealous Blade: This trait now scales with healing power by 2%.
Honor VI—Pure of Heart: Increased scaling with healing power from 25% to 40%.

All three of these examples are changes to basically the same part of a trait, all said in a different way

Ah, I didn’t see the guardian changes. Yes, I agree that it would have been much better for the elixir-infused bombs patch notes to read the same way:

“Increased scaling with healing power from 10% to 15%”

That would have made things much more simple.

jimmyimo.2089:

The animal would be Svanir and Chieftain.

Or is it an allegory with a more subtle, hidden meaning?

Manuhell.2759:

NevirSayDie.6235:

The patch note preview was very clear that the healing power scaling was being increased. It’s already a massive heal considering it’s spammable, aoe, and bombs are a good kit even without the trait.

And at the same time it is a grandmaster trait, working on a single utility, that requires constant and sustained use of said kit to actually have some concrete benefit from it (as it basically heals the same for every bomb, toolbelt included).

Whereas any other class gets grandmaster traits working on entire categories of utilities…

Not every GM trait in the game is awesomely powerful, it’s true. I’d wager a fair sum that elixir-infused bombs is more useful than the Guardian grandmaster that increases their condition damage. Or that makes virtue of justice into an AoE instead of a single-target. Yes, there is a GM trait that affects one skill.

I’m not saying that those traits justify having other sub-par GM traits, just that we need to stop implying that other professions are more favored than engineers.

digiowl.9620:

ANet has developed a mindset that GW2 should be about “skill” over theorycrafting. This means that they are withholding a whole lot of info, leading to people instead gathering it by trial, error, and stopwatches.

When the game launched, non-channeled skills didn’t even list their windup times, and are still missing any data on the after-attack delays (sorry, brain failing me on the actual term). The very delays that make things like the auto-attack on pistols no better than the rifle, even tho it has shorter windup.

I agree that in general, numbers should absolutely be made very available. It was really annoying to not know cast times or aftercast times at launch. All I meant was that the patch notes were probably stated as clearly as possible given the rules that the people who wrote them had to work with.

Darnis.4056:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Luthan.5236:

Another suggestion: Turn them into gold boost. 50 percent more money(okay it really is silver) while having such a item equipped. But don’t make it possible to get more of these in the future.

Old players will have a bit more way to make money this way.

This is probably the best solution/least prone to being exploited.

What’s that you say? 1000% gold Boosters? Sign me up.

Well, 1000% might cause the PvEers to get upset. Let’s make it…820%.

Seriously though, making it an instant consumable worth any more than 200 glory could have bad consequences. Turn it into whatever bonus % the usual gold buffs are (there are gold buff consumables, right?) and you’re good to go.

martyrius.8957:

Why dont yaks and storm go into the obsidian sanctum ever. in your whole servers you guys dont have any duelists or roamers?

Of course we have solo roamers. Why would we go to the OS though?

I would love this, but I don’t think the WvW population wants gear to be balanced. Some people enjoy having more powerful stuff than their opponents too much to give it up.

I like these ideas but you’d have to be very careful.

—It would be pretty easy for second accounts on an opposing server to trigger defense events for their main server no matter how you set it up. That would be a lot worse than wasting supply.
—Attacking anything might be a bad strategy unless your side has the enemy badly outmanned. Sure, it’s possible to push into a defended keep, but how many points is the enemy going to get from defense events before you succeed?
—Re-taking your own borderland or objectives close to your waypoint could do more harm than good.

IMO the most important thing Anet can do for WvW players is to protect them from themselves. The current system favors coverage, but at least it does a decent job of restraining direct cheating and encouraging fighting, and it can become even better at those things. Changing the system even to something arguably better—but more easily exploitable—would be a fatal error.

Luthan.5236:

Another suggestion: Turn them into gold boost. 50 percent more money(okay it really is silver) while having such a item equipped. But don’t make it possible to get more of these in the future.

Old players will have a bit more way to make money this way.

This is probably the best solution/least prone to being exploited.

herrard.1274:

It could obviously have been worded better to avoid confusion. The fact that there is confusion means they did not word it properly so there’s blame to spread here.

That’s a fair point. Communication is a two-way street. I’m not sure what the policy is on releasing the exact skill coefficients for power or healing power. Without explicitly stating “the old healing power coefficient was .1, and the new healing power coefficient will be .15,” I can’t really think of a different way to say it.

Kanto.1659:

NevirSayDie.6235:

That’s not exactly true. An engineer spamming bombs on himself with 1000 healing power would heal for right around 400/second (because each tick of fire/smoke/glue bomb heals).

Heart of Mists testing says no. Only the first conflagration.

Hmm, I could be mistaken. When I tested it in the mists a few weeks ago I saw additional healing coming with each tick. I’ll have to check it out again.

herrard.1274:

This is dumb. 50% increase sounds a lot better than just saying we will increase scaling from .1 to .15. I feel deceived.

Again, the patch note preview was very clear that the scaling was being increased, not the base healing amount. There was some discussion beforehand on this engineer subforum, and multiple posters quickly cleared up the few misconceptions that this would increase the overall power of the trait by 50%.

Don’t get me wrong, I can see how it could be easy to misinterpret the patch notes. But it seems hardly fair to blame Anet for that.

I think this is a great idea, but please remember that glory boosters are craftable with a consumable token and some mats. So Anet would need to limit the glory to probably only 200 glory per booster to prevent people going crazy making infinite glory loops via chests/salvaging/creating boosters/consuming boosters.

Natronix.9827:

I’m going to swallow every bit of pride left in me. For the sake of sportmanship.

I’ve heard that YB is still dealing from siege griefers these past weeks, just to let you know, we dont approve of it and none of our regular commanders are using it as an advantage.

Good job on putting us on 3rd place, again. The week is not over, but it shows how dedicated your guilds are. So good job, and I hope we can stop the dirty playing from now on.

Have a fun one

This post contains no insults and cannot be summarized with the sentence, “My server/guild is better than your server/guild.”

I…think I…might need a moment…is this still the matchups subforum?

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

icewyrm.5038:

There’s a problem with balancing this way. People tend to pick traits based on their effectiveness/usefulness in comparison to all others available.

If you keep nerfing all the traits people use without substantially improving the rest you just end up with a bunch of junk no one wants to use.

Please don’t take that the wrong way. I don’t feel engie is in that predicament. I personally haven’t been using either of the traits that have changed and have not for months.

And while it seems a bit unfair balance wise right now that some classes still have very cheap and easy access to quite reliable permanent vigor, I don’t particularly want them to lose it either because I also play those classes and find it quite useful. So useful in fact that I always have it in pretty much every build on said classes. Funny how that works.

I agree that it’s not a perfect system. It’s way better than listening to people on the forums, which has brought us zerker stance, dhuumfire, and cleansing ire, among other fun balance changes.

I think it’s a good change overall. I like the fact that I’m just not sure if speedy kits/invigorating speed is worth it any more. I mean, I want to have to figure that out, not just know that it’s the best way I can spend 20 points in most builds.

I agree that the near-perma in-combat vigor minor traits need to get hit. Those aren’t choices, they’re just bonuses that pretty much every build with a crit chance gets automatically.

Haralin.1473:

A Warrior regs more with no Healingpower every second as we engis can do with bombs with a grand master tier trait thats balance!

That’s not exactly true. An engineer spamming bombs on himself with 1000 healing power would heal for right around 400/second (because each tick of fire/smoke/glue bomb heals). If he uses healing turret on cooldown also, and has super elixir, and backpack regenerator, and blasts a water field every once in a while, he’ll be looking at a lot more healing than a warrior can push out.

Warrior healing has the advantage of being passive, brainless, and constant. Engineers have the advantage of actually being interesting to play.

Kanto.1659:

Bummer. Anet and their semantic rigmaroles. Would it hurt so much to follow the usual thing they do of ‘increased from 10% to 15%’ instead of ‘an increase of FIFTY PERCENT!!!’.

So with 2k we’d heal for around 450 HP, is it?

How do we reach 2k healing anyway? I’ve heard of it but I was trying to build it with a online skill calc and only got to around 1800 on full cleric (weapons, jewelry, armor, orbs), 25 stacks of Life and food and 300 from the trait line.

The patch note preview was very clear that the healing power scaling was being increased. It’s already a massive heal considering it’s spammable, aoe, and bombs are a good kit even without the trait.

icewyrm.5038:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Also remember that older fields take precedence, so they can overwrite the water field.

I’ve actually found that the water field on the healing turret sometimes seems to overwrite older fields (nonstandard behaviour).

I notice this particularly when I do the following combo in spvp:
Bombkit -> Smoke bomb, Summon healing turret -> Overcharge, Detonate turret
I find that instead of getting AoE stealth, I end up blasting the water field instead.

Not sure if it’s a bug or intended but it seems fairly reproducible.

I think there might be certain fields that have nonstandard behavior like that. It’s also possible to drop smoke bomb and use another skill before the bomb goes off and creates the smoke field, since there’s a delay of about 1 second. I’m not sure if it’s possible to get the water field out before the smoke field using healing turret after smoke bomb or not.

Kontrolle.3514:

No they just needed to justify more build-slaughtering enginerfs so they brought up that perma vigor crap.

Actually, most of their balance changes are done based on internal data. In other words, they are able to look at engineer builds across the game. Probably what they saw was that nearly every single one was taking speedy kits and invigorating speed. Usually, when traits/skills are so good that nearly everyone takes them, it means a nerf is coming.

The things they buffed—firearms and inventions grandmasters—were traits that nearly no one was using. It’s a good, objective method to balance. I won’t deny that engineers received an overall nerf this time around, though, at least in PvP/WvW.

Only the scaling with healing power has been changed. “Scaling” is the extra healing each bomb does based on your healing power stat. The old scaling coefficient was .1—in other words, each bomb would heal for X + (healing power * .1).

That scaling has been increased by 50%. Bombs now heal for X + (healing power * .15).

If you don’t have any healing power on your gear, you will barely notice a change. If you have 1000 healing power, you will heal for 50 more per bomb/tick. If you have 2000 healing power, you’ll heal for 100 more per bomb/tick.

Your best bet is to keep practicing with warrior. PvP in this game is difficult. Even if you copy a top dueling build, expect it to take a lot of practice before you are good with it. Warrior is probably the best profession to learn on.

You can also make a mesmer and thief to see what their abilities do and how you can beat them. Don’t expect to instantly do better with one of them than with your warrior, though.

Lopez.7369:

More often than not, it’s better to specialize.

I’m all for trying new ideas. I’m going to try Flesh Golem. But I’m pretty certain nothing will work.

Me too. But I think the way it used to be so profitable to “specialize” is what Anet was targeting with this change.

Lopez.7369:

It’s not an overreaction. It’s a math problem. Scepter and staff auto-attacks can’t outdamage elementalist’s passive healing, even in carrion gear. Life Blast might be able to dent the elementalist, but it’s not enough to overcome the threshold without a proper power build because of its slow cast time.

The other suggestions you gave are impractical to the point that a necromancer would be better off rerolling.

I fully expect that as well. I’m just saying we should try stuff to confirm that it doesn’t work.

What do you think of 20/20/0/0/30 with carrion and 50% crit in DS? The only difference from the regular build would be the loss of dhuumfire, which honestly isn’t even that great (an extra 100-150 damage per second or so?), and something like 3x the direct damage burst.

I’m not a great necro player so it probably wouldn’t work because I’m probably forgetting something important. I’m not claiming to be a master necro that has the secret to beating a DS ele. But shouldn’t somebody try it? For science?

I’m not super impressed with the new diamond skin, but I’m also against overreacting.

Let’s at least try some different stuff, and then, if it doesn’t work, come back and say, “I tried flesh golem, carrion amulet, life blast, axe on swap, wells, minions, and none of it worked.” Instead of just, “I tried 30/20/0/0/20 rabid and it didn’t work.” FYI: 95% of the playerbase hates the 30/20/0/0/20 build and wants it to go away completely. Anet’s just listening to their playerbase, just like they did when we asked for zerker stance, cleansing ire, etc, etc.

Thrashbarg.9820:

It’s probably against some rules of your company in some way, but if not, try starting a Kickstarter fund for GvG development. I’d be willing to bet you’d get all the funding (resources) required fairly quickly. There are a lot of people who want to play a game that doesn’t exist right now, and GW2 is an awesome platform to make it happen.

It’s way easier than that. All the GvG community has to do is play the game. If these arranged fights in the OS start happening more often, it will get developed.

If they start seeing hundreds of arranged fights in the OS every day, they’ll devote resources to it. If they only see a few fights a week, they won’t. If GvG is as good as its community thinks, it will get popular despite interruptions. If not, well, Anet’s smart to not devote a ton of resources to it.

Lux.7169:

My issue being that Anet seems to think that constantly merging thieves is the solution to diversity. While I agree sd needed to be nerfed they did it the wrong way. I’m willing to bet that the next nerf will be a sizeable one to D/P in order to ‘allow more thief builds to manifest in the meta’ when D/P does not need nerfing =\

Do you think shortbow needs to be nerfed to allow other weapons to be buffed? I’m no thief expert, but as far as I can tell, shortbow is practically mandatory. If shortbow were nerfed, and other weapons were buffed, would build diversity improve?

Thrashbarg.9820:

Maskaganda.2043:

fight against any decent group and try stacking conditions on a target. it’s not gonna happen.

You may want to remove the links from your signature before posting such nonsense. The very first video in your list shows you handily winning a 2v1 by spamming conditions.

I play engineer as well, so don’t try to tell me how great you are or how bad your opponents are. If your build auto-wins by spamming everything on cooldown, even against mediocre opponents, it’s over powered.

I try to not jump into WvW balance threads because they’re pretty painful to read, but I feel like I should reply to this. I think you’re hitting on an interesting point. For example, most thieves in WvW will win by using stealth, because average players just have no idea how to react when their opponent disappears. You could say similar things for warrior and mesmer.

I guess what I’m saying is, there’s kind of a baseline of competence that the game requires to not get destroyed by stuff like stealth, or hammer chains, or phantasms. I don’t think there’s any way to “protect” players from clones or stealth or conditions. All the nerfs in the world won’t make the game easier, and I don’t think we’d want it to be easier, anyway.

So this means that the easiest targets will be glowing.

…how is this a problem again?

Victory.2879:

Aberrant.6749:

Indeed it’s also very dependent on class/build. Like an eng will often have very little cond removal with just turret(2) and EG(1).

Trait for it, -40% food, eg 1, healing kit 4, engis have lots of condition removal traits and in fact can clear ALL conditions at 25% HP.

Conditions aren’t really that much of a problem for people if they plan for them – and if you don’t then expect them to kill you. Burst damage is mainly what kills people in groups- even small parties can cleanse conditions while bursting down whatever is causing them.

Actually, medkit 4 only cleanses one condition (contrary to the implication of the tooltip) so HT is twice as good at condition removal, as the person you quoted says. Also, the Automated Response trait doesn’t remove any conditions, just keeps new ones from being applied. It’s a good trait, but it doesn’t cleanse any conditions.

Their two traits that remove conditions are transmute (which is getting an arguable buff tomorrow) and CF409, which is useful in a build with 2+ elixirs. They do have a utility that clears conditions, elixir C, but it’s very hard to fit into a working build.

And now you know about engineers’ condi removal skills and traits!

Lordrosicky.5813:

What are you on about. The trait system and amulet system is utterly restrictive meaning that theorycrafting in this game is all but absent. 95% of people will know within 15 minutes what the best builds are and then will run them.

Diamond skin might not work well. I dont care. But it is lame. And it is yet more potential power creep. Even if it isnt broken this patch, it is almost inevitable it will be broken eventually.

Another thing with theorycrafting currently, is that even if you do manage to theory craft a coherent build – it doesnt work when you play. You will spend all day perfecting a build that you have create. Then you queue for a tournament and a s/d thief annihilates you whilst you can’t even hit him. Or a warrior regens everything you do to him whilst inflicted massive damage AND cc with 1900 toughness.

That is the thing. Power creep has proceeded at such a pace that theorycrafting is so pointless because the whole meta is just stifled out by broken skills and traits which give immunities, massive regen, endless evades, or massive damage. Another flat immunity trait is certainly not going to make more builds viable and help theory crafting. It will just be more of the same. More of “Well I cant run this because everyone is immune to it”. And less of “I want to play this and if I am good enough I can make it work”.

I disagree. I predict we’ll see good new builds surfacing for about one month after the patch; then things will become “settled” again.

Sure, people will post threads by Dec. 11th about how awful the new meta is and all they see is build X anymore. That doesn’t make it true.

Basically, you’re saying that necro really does only have one build, staff/sd rabid, and that after the patch they will still only have that one build. And that eles using DS will be able to compete vs. thief and warrior.

Warthog.6870:

Oh – I’ve got one as well: “just eat some cake when you’re being bullied for being a fattie”

Hmm, that was an okay-ish response. I give it 3/10. Eh, maybe 3.5, it’s a tossup.

Vinny.6924:

I am now reminded of why I’m not a forum warrior. Good day to you.

PvF is a strange game. Often, the only winning move is not to play.

Keira Ferland.5619:

now the real question is what kinda ele will spec 30 into earth

This is actually the part of the patch I really like. Basically, after this patch you have to theorycraft to stay competitive.

Players who can’t think of any way to revise the standard copy/paste builds stand to get demolished after this patch, and I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing. I suppose that in a few weeks, new builds will be popular and they can just copy/paste those, but I think overall the meta will be shaken pretty hard.

That is what we want, right?

Also remember that older fields take precedence, so they can overwrite the water field.

There’s always been a 1-second delay. However, I believe there’s a harmless bug that will cause some kits to have no cooldown in some situations, so it’s understandable to be unsure.

I’ve also been theorycrafting outside of the speedy kits/invigorating speed combination a bit. I’d like to hear your thoughts on power shoes as an alternative to speedy kits, with vigor/endurance coming from runes/sigils rather than traits.

Hmm, some of those look kind of concerning. I guess it’s nice that people will start needing to really pay attention for some of those heals and will be severely punished for just spamming damage onto, say, a warrior. Some of them may end up being simply too powerful.

The inherent problem with releasing new skills/classes/anything is that if they’re not OP, no one will have a reason to use them.

Soilder.3607:

Problem with engi’s is that they’re basically a hard counter to anyone running a melee build (except wars). They’ll just run around and kite as you simultaneously eat their bombs and nades.

So basically, engineers are a hard counter to double s/d thieves and guardians?

In all seriousness, it would be nice to know what you consider a “melee build.” Bomb/nade engineers do pretty well vs. most thief builds because their ranged pressure is about equal and thieves have trouble standing toe-to-toe with anything. That’s all that really comes to mind as far as stuff that engineers really counter.

Chaith.8256:

Dey see we trollin’ .. dey postin .. the pics on .. threads in the sPvP forum

Quote of the week.

I don’t think a multiple team, last-man-standing mode would fit this game well.

I have thought that a 3-team deathmatch with respawns might be cool, points being awarded for stomps/last hits. It would really, really emphasize downed state, though, so some people might not like it.

TheDevice.2751:

This sounds like an engi fanboy Automated Response. Get it?

The only thing is that I’ve played both, so I can tell you that engineer is harder and also more fun. You should try it, you’ll agree.

Engineers agree that AR is poorly-designed, and several of the good ones have chosen to play without it. However, even with AR a condi engineer should lose to a condi necro. To put things into perspective, in a pure condi spam fight, a condi engineer has either 2 or 3 condition cleanses; a necro can flip 6 conditions and consume conditions. Engineers have better mobility, but necros have way ranged pressure.

If you need tips for beating an AR engineer, hit me up in-game. It’s not that tough, you just have to save your fears or play with carrion amulet, which you’ll probably want to start doing anyway since DS ele might be a build after the patch.

fodem.2713:

The system must have something to make it easier to increase your MMR over time…. I mean, as I can notice, the more people play, Lower their MMR is….

That will always be the case, because a low sample size (games played) will always have a greater variance than a high sample size.

In other words, some players with few games played will have a higher win percentage than they “should” and some will have a lower win percentage than they “should.” Of course, we’ll only notice the ones with the high win percentages.

Think of it like flipping a coin. In 10 flips, it’s just possible that you could get 100% heads, but that would be unthinkably improbable over 500 flips.

Good fights everyone. This has been a fun matchup. Props to FA for being extremely organized and disciplined. People who are willing to spend hours just standing in a tower keeping watch always amaze me, because you couldn’t pay me to do that. I’d rather lose, heheh.

Doubtful about the PvF award. No server wins that this season; every single one loses.

I think the OP has made an excellent suggestion. Engineer is too fun to allow people to use other professions!

The best part of his suggestion: condi engineers would no longer have to deal with condi necros, the single build that hardcounters them perfectly.

HELLruler.4820:

But how helpful players are? You can find a guardian that provides good control and support, and then another that can only think about killing the enemy team and gets stomped when diving in the middle of a group of enemies

What I want to point is that you can play really really well and still lose the match and hurt your position while a worse player is getting carried up by his teammates. If there’s a way to judge the player performance as well, you may lose, but you still are rewarded by trying and playing well; just like the bad player won’t go too high getting carried

And that’s where all my "maybe"s enter. A rank 50 may be good, or not lol

It’s true that a good player may sometimes play really well and still lose a match. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t rate players based on their wins/losses. A good player will be able to help the teams he is on to win at least some of the time, while a bad player (like one who just dives into a group of enemies) will cause his teams to lose more often. Over time, the good player will be ranked higher with a higher win percentage, and the bad player will be ranked lower.

A bad player will get “carried” sometimes but then his rating will go up, and he’ll get teammates who are equal or lower than him on the ladder. Then his rating will go back down to where it belongs.

On the other hand, if the game tried to analyze each individual’s “performance,” the bad player might look really good. Maybe he zergs around with his teammates in one big group, killing everyone they come across but never actually controlling more than 1 capture point at a time. I’ve seen solo queue matches where one side literally just clumped up into a group of five and ran in circles around the map, ending with big scores but losing the match.

Excalibur.9748:

Pre buff: warrior and necro mains demanding buffs.
Post buff: everyone else demanding nerfs.

Maybe. There aren’t very many people saying Anet needs to “hurry up” or “hotfix” warrior/necro though, I’d say about the same number of people who felt Anet needed to “hotfix” eles back when they were dominant.

I’m not against balance changes, but I am against getting worked up and lobbying for bigger nerfs/buffs than are necessary. I used warriors/necros/eles as examples because all of them have suffered from either over-buffing or witch hunts/overnerfing.

The patch on the 10th is going to shake things up a lot. I don’t think it’s wise to get worked up until we see what happens.

Remember that not too long ago, the forums were saying the same things—only it was that warriors and necros needed huge buffs, and eles that needed huge nerfs. The forums were always so mad when another patch passed and warriors only received minor buffs. We kept saying that Anet needed to just hurry up and make a huge change. And then they did.

A lot of people had complained about the rank system. It wasn’t meaningful, it took a massive amount of time to “complete” (something like 3000-6000 hours to reach rank 80), and it was achieved faster by zerging in hotjoins than by playing at high skill levels.

The new system will still have long-term aesthetic rewards, just in a different format that makes it less detached from the rest of the game, plus the “temporary” ladder-based rewards you mention.

One main problem with the old system is that it was making people unhappy with matchmaking. Since ranks had very little to do with skill, even in very close matches one side could be stacked with more experienced players. Add in the fact that the matchmaker had very real problems until recently, and you can see that people felt things were “unfair.”