Guild Wars 2

Kheops.3081:

Ant.3415:

Create thief, use sword, win. I’m happy for the buffs to some of the other professions, even the ones that didn’t need it (Ranger).

are you serious dude ? you’re complaining yet you’re playing one of the strongest class after the patch (ele yes), yet you want more power ?

Any1 saying Eles are still OP as a Bunker needs to get 1 thing straight:

You can’t hop into Solo-q and think that with every composition your Teammates might run and without any good timing and teamplay in Teamfights, you’re supposed to easily take down a tank. That’s not how this game is supposed to work.

Yes, Bunker-Eles and many other Bunker-builds might feel OP in solo-q, but if you plan your Build right and execute it properly, I highly doubt any1 would still call them OP in sPvP.

It’s very acceptable that 2 offensive Chars are needed to take down an Ele and with the new Lacerating Strike and Nerfs to Mist Form and the Healing Signet, any other DMG-dealer will be enough to help the Thief to get the kill on the Cantrip-Ele. The Problem with Cantrip-Ele before the nerfs/buffs to other classes was, that it was hard to take him down even with 2 ppl if you didn’t have the exact right composition of very glassy DD’s (Thief + Mesmer).

With the nerf and Lacerating Strike, Cantrip-Eles are probably fine… The nerfs hurt valk-amu Ele more imho, which is a bit sad.

kailin.4905:

Its still pushing 2. I watched about 2 hours of thief in spectator today and the new boon steal is at least a new mechanic but still almost everything I saw was backstab, 2, 2, 2. Maybe I was watching noobs but they seemed to be doing well.

The new Boonsteal is so incredibly amazing IMHO. You just shouldn’t play it on a glasscannon-build, but with Valk-Amu. Valk-Amu now is actually pretty decent on a Thief, because if I don’t get it wrong somehow, it will work for the New Mug and for potential Regen you steal off of enemies.

That’s the balanced roamer I’m playing atm.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAV8YlYmiO3by9E9JFx2jd2Te6V4raFoZnCuKfA-TsAA0CnImRNjbGzMyZszMsYZxWEA

I’ve played it before the patch and I liked it, but all the new changes actually made this build better. Way better DPS, Flanking Strike is extremely good (especially because you can cast flanking strike without a target and then teleport to your target and get an easy lacerating strike in) and a bit better sustain.

That’s why I said Obs-Mode and CA’s are by far the most important things, because they make awesome stuff like this possible!

Good job.

What annoys me a bit is that often Streamers don’t offer low-quality Streams and VoD’s on low quality: My Inet sometimes really sucks and I’d rather watch on a lower Setting without lag than high-def Slide-Shows. ^^’

Godofallu.2935:

I don’t want to be rude but it seems like you don’t know how to play spvp and make builds. You are putting points into trait lines that don’t even have any synergy in the attribute department and focusing on shouts way way too much.

You can’t just put 30 points into crit damage and have 0 precision/crit chance. You can’t just take 3 shouts and have no stun break/invincibility or cc whatsoever. I mean why are you not wearing condition damage runes and taking some banners into spvp? That also makes no sense and has no synergy or viability.

Yes, the 30 Points in crit-dmg are a bit harsh, but it’s worth it because Burst-Mastery is so strong. Besides, 35% crit-chance isn’t low. Have you guys only played Glass-cannons? On Valk-Amu, 35% crit-chance is soooo much – most Ele’s on Valk need to get away with 15-25% at absolute Max.

But you can test out the build with another Amu or more points in Precision, but if you go Zerker-Amu, you have no Support and no Sustain and if you invest into precision-traits, you loose viable Traits and you get Condition-DPS, which really does nothing for the build…

Same goes for the Thief, 22% is solid if you add up the little bit of Fury and the +7% from behind. These are no glasscannons and if you go for sustain, there’s always a trade-off between DPS and Tankyness/Teamsupport and you need to find a good balance.

I haven’t been really active besides Solo-q, but I’ve played on a high level and I plan to do again, but there’s really no reason to believe me other than the curiosity to find out if these new builds work.

Besides, the War has Stunbreakers and “Fear me!” can be used defensively to counter certain bursts as well.

Warlord.9074:

They’re still not viable. Maybe almost viable. What good is HB without GS passives? What good is crit power without chance to crit. YOU could have 200 Crit power but if you had zero precision it doesn’t help you. Obviously thats not thostally the case, you still have som precision and fury but Its not enough in my opinion. Becasue your trading guaranteed damage for hypothetical damage regulated by an RNG.

Boon hate theoretically would boost your damage considerably, but when your not criting and you have traded weapon passives and strength in precision it doesn’t come close to even breaking even.

Of course it doesn’t deal as much DPS as a Glasscannon 100b War, but in return, it has insanely good Teamsupport, good sustain and of course almost 5 Second-Immobilizes.

And if 8-10k guaranteed DPS (without the opponent using a defensive CD) with a almost 5 sec Immobilize every 8 seconds isn’t enough for you on a heavy support-class with insane movement, then I don’t know what you’re looking for.

It really shouldn’t be played like a glasscannon 100b-War that just went in and out every 60 seconds and hoped the opponent has no CD’s, which was a stupid build IMHO to begin with. This one is a Teamfight pressure build with strong killing-potential – just a very strong allrounder.

Don’t try it if you don’t want, but I’m sure we’ll see more of the War very soon, because the Buffs were actually very good. Ppl just have to get away from the thought that the War needs to be a quick-burst glasscannon and realize that he’s better at high pressure, CC and Teamsupport.

And in case you’ve never played anything but a glasscannon. With Fury (easily 100% uptime on this build) you get 35% crit-chance, which is actually very very strong for any build that doesn’t use a high precision-Amu.

Aloha,

IMHO, the new Patch is the best one so far, because it really helped to put some Builds that were decent, but not quite good enough, onto the Map of potentially viable PvP-builds. Here are the builds I’ve been testing for weeks/months and why they might be good enough to play competetively after this Patch

100b Immobilize War
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNBhYDbkzp5N5x6hJOAYKYk6Bc1FX6hYslGA-TsAA0CnIKSVkrITRyisFNsYZxWEA

The build is an allrounder with good sustain and insane CC and pressure-DPS. At first, I thought that the new Burst-Mastery probably wouldn’t be as good as a simple +10% DMG on Greatsword (Slashing Power), but hell – I was so wrong!

It’s actually sick how easy it is to fire off Sword-F1 into 100b every 8 seconds! Once you’re in a fight and have full adrenalin (Healing Surge and Adrenalin on Shouts and Weapon Swap make this quite easy) pretty much all you have to do is switch your weapon twice and you’ll have full adrenalin and your Sword-F1 is rdy to be used again.

CC/Tank War
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNBiYDbkzp5N5x6BHOAgKYl6Bc1FX6hYslGA-TsAgzCmIySllLLTWyssZNQY1wWEA

Again, the Star of this build is Burst-Mastery: You’ll be able to put out so much CC now! Also, the new dogged March gives you a bit of regen, which makes you more tanky and also makes good use of your abundant healing Power.

Sustain Boonstripper-Thief
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAV8YlYmiO3by9E9JFx2jd2Te6V4raFoZnCuKfA-TsAA0CnImRNjbGzMyZszMsYZxWEA

I always liked the Idea of this build: Tons of dodges, decent CC and DMG and very high Mobility. But I never liked how using the Valk-Amu really didn’t do much for the build, because you couldn’t really utilize the Healing Power. Also, it lacked a bit in DPS.

Now you have your Mug for additional heal and the ability to steel defensive Boons and the new Flanking Strike is just insanely good to apply constant pressure while also helping you with sustainability.

So, what builds did you come up with that work because of the new Patch?

True – best patch yet by far!

Chukree.1756:

If you go power 20, arms 25, in your warrior traits you get bezerkers might 12% when full adreneline, 10% on great sword.

arms 25, is 10% against bleeding foes.

why use 30 traits in discipline and lose 10% dmg? + power or crit chance too, for the new trait that gives 3% dmg per boon?

Think twice , and fix it fast please.

who cares about the DPS against boons when you have burst mastery – this skill rocks so hard… I can literally go in with full adrenalin (shouts or the heal), get immo100b, then switch weapons twice and I can go for it again – soooo sick!

I had no doubt in my mind that I’m not gonna use the other new trait, especially with thiefs now ripping off boons like crazy, you really don’t need anything else against boons (in addition to mesmer and necro, which a lot of ppl are using atm)

AWESOMESAUCE yaaaaaaaaaay!

justified imho.

AlBundy.7851:

really? You’ve never used the greatsword for it’s disengage potential? Seriously? Are you being sarcastic?

Of course I’ve used it for that, but I didn’t make a build with a GS in it simply for that purpose and in this particular build, it will be simply for that purpose, because:

- On downed opponents, Longbow F1 and 3 on the Longbow will most of the times be better
- Without Sword F1 or the old Quickness and possibly other Utilities, you won’t do much with 100b.
- The Immobilize on Longbow iss to short, has a too long CD and is too easy to dodge to make GS viable in most fights.
- going in for a 100b with being a total glasscannon and without the necessary Immobilize/Quickness to make 100b work, it’ll probably do you more harm than good.

Yes, there might be Situations where you can use your 100b, but as the Original Poster said in his Post – it’s a Longbow-build first.

Here’s my 100b build with lots of sustain and Teamfight-Potential and enough Immobilize to get through a 100b every 10 seconds. I’ve tried building it more glassy, but it actually is much better as a sustain and pressure-build, because relying on Adrenalin-buildup for Sword F1 is kinda hard as a glasscannon and you really need to go in for a while to land your Sword-F1, so it’s better to get a bit less DPS, but much more staying-power.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNBhYDbkzp5N5x6hJOAYUYEQKFwVX6hYslGA-TsAA0CnIKSVkrITRyisFNsYZxWEA

It’s not a pure DPS-Class, but the amount of CC and safe pressure-DPS it puts out is amazing. Together with high moverability, decent tankyness and amazing Teamsupport, it’s IMHO one of the best Allrounder builds I’ve played so far.

I’m really looking forward toying around with some new Traits as well, because the only thing really set in stone for this build is Sword+Greatsword and at least 10% incresed Condition-duration so you can get your full 100b with one Sword F1 and that it should probably not be a pure glasscannon, because you’ll need to stay in teamfights for longer than a BS-Thief or what a 100b-War used to be to make an impact.

*Edit: It’s actually quite astonishing how well this War can roam together with a Valk-Amu Ele:

- They give each other Heals and buffs, which is very good for sustain-classes, because 2 sustain-classes with AoE-heals will become quite tanky really quick.
- They assist each other with Condi-Removal (Again, the Warhorn, “Shake it off” and the condi-removal when you switch to water are AoE to begin with, so together they have quite a bit of Condi-removal)
- The Ele can make it a bit easier for the War to hit Sword F1 with Updraft and Knockdowns and in return, the War guarantees hits from churning earth and Dragon’s Tooth, if the opponent doesn’t use defensive CD’s.

Really, try it out! ^^’

I kinda like the build and this goes to show how versatile and deep the War actually is, because I’ve spent hours upon hours coming up with builds, but it never occured to me that GS can simply be used as an escape and movement-weapon.

Longbow is very underrated, though I haven’t really played it with zerker, more with rampagers, but the Arcing Arrow does insane DPS – I didn’t even know that! ^^’

I can see this build work, but really only on certain Maps and with good Support to help the War when he’s getting attack, because he’ll die very fast IMHO.

Conditions are very strong, but on the other Hand, a big part of how to deal with Conditions is playing with good Supporters in the Team.

Shout-Wars + Rune of the Soldier, Shout-Guards with Rune of the Soldier and Pure of Voice, Necros with the Plague Signet and of course the Ele with tons of Condition-removal.

I feel that it could become annoying dealing with Conditions when you solo-q, because you won’t have the necessary Support, but in Team-matches, there is no excuse when you loose to conditions – it’s just a Metagame-thing:

You have to analyze the Meta and decide how much effort you’ll put into dealing with conditions, it was the same in GW1, but you not only had to deal with conditions, but also Hexes, which needed different removal-skills.

Gotta say – I’m pretty pumped for this!

great job ANet!

I really do think that it’s a necessity that inactive Players loose rank…

Apolo.5942:

I have seen a few talent rehashes but nothing to our mobility (or lack of it) are we still screwed after the patch?

Warrior has potentially awesome mobility, you just have to invest into it, while other classes get it basically for free. But still, the Options for the Warrior are actually very good:

- Warhorn/Elite Signet etc. can potentially give you perma-swiftness
- The Amount of great Movement-skills is also very huge: GreatSword 3 and 5 and Sword 2 are actually awesome.

The war is also insane against Movement-impairing effects thanks to the Warhorn, restorative Strength and of course Mobile Strikes, one of the most underrated traits, especially on a Greatsword-War.

really, what do you want more?

Holy Moly, I love the changes!

Warrior
New trait: Burst Mastery. Combines both grandmaster Discipline traits. Reduces burst skill recharge and adrenaline used.

I already loved the reduced burst cost, because it allows you to combo from stuff like sword F1 into Hammer/Mace F1 Stun and now you even get the reduced CD for free?

Thief
Mug can no longer crit, but also heals for 2000 + healing power.

love it – i’ve toyed around with builds that didn’t really use Mug at all, but lacked in sustain and couldn’t really utilize Healing Power well. If this one actually scales well with Healing Power, it’s actually very useful.

-Flanking Strike has improved animation that better tracks the target, now costs 3 initiative
-Larsonist’s Strike added as a follow up to Flanking Strike. If it lands, this hit will steal one boon from the target. Costs 1 initiative. May consider traits in the future to share this boon with the team.

Again, I really liked Flanking Strike, but it just wasn’t really good enough. With this change, it could potentially be a very good pressure-skill!

Also, the changes to cantrip-ele might not be huge, but they are definitely a small nerf to the build. Together with buffs to most other classes and the necessary changes to spirit watch, it could actually work out well.

Blackhat.4016:

Lower the base healing on Cleansing Wave and increase the ratio with Healing Power. Burst builds could heal less and bunker builds would stay viable. This would also make Evasive Arcana less powerful. Problem solved.

Exactly the opposite should be done: Bunker-Ele’s are the Problem, not the ones with Valk-Amu…..

I kinda like those propositions and it would reduce the tankyness of certain builds while still keeping strong support-capabilities with the chill.

Maybe Valk-Amu Eles would then be a bit too squishy though, but a slight HP-boost could solve that without making tank-builds too strong again.

NordicNinja.5476:

PowerBottom.5796:

Ever heard of shouts + soldier-runes and Warhorn + Quick breathing?

And burst simply isn’t the War’s role anymore – it’s now Support and CC, which is actually quite fun to do and the War is godlike at it.

But as the game stands, why would to take that on a 5 man team in a Conquest map? I’d personally rather have someone who could easily break off and stand a chance in a 1v1.

I agree with your earlier comments however, once custom arenas are out I think new life will be breathed into the Warrior class.

Depends on playstyle IMHO…. In most Team-setups, the Support/Tank/Roamer-War won’t be as useful as other builds that are more common, but maybe if ppl figure out a team-comp that is designed to focus on two points and force the other Team into Teamfights, it could be a very strong build.

I’m Theorycrafting about a Team-comp with 1 Ele-Tank, 1 Support-Guard Offtank, 1 Support-War Offtank and two balanced DMG-Dealers with good Teamfight and decent survival (like a Valk-Amu Ele, a Necro or sth.)

Common Teamcomps would have no chance at all against a Team like that if you can force Teamfights, because you have no Glasscannons and the Support is so high, that the Chars can keep themselves alive indefinitely. The DMG would also be enough to kill anything besides the toughest Tanks – it would take a long time, but if you have the Points, you’re simply never gonna loose them again with a Team with that much sustain.

Problems: Probably the really tanky builds like Ele….

But I think forcing Teamfights and winning them could be a viable strategy instead of just either being incredibly tanky or roaming to a point and burst sth. down with a glasscannon.

swinsk.6410:

I stopped playing mine in spvp because my burst has suffered a lot and I die to conditions way to easily. I hate dieing to conditions…

Warriors blow, IMO.

Ever heard of shouts + soldier-runes and Warhorn + Quick breathing?

And burst simply isn’t the War’s role anymore – it’s now Support and CC, which is actually quite fun to do and the War is godlike at it.

Hugs.1856:

It’s the part of the debate: what should be the focus of balance?

- low skilled players? high skilled players?
- solo players? team players?

If I were a dev, I would go for a mix of everything while having high level teams as the end goal:p

Doesn’t mean I’m discarding low levels solo’ers – that would be suicidal- but the end balance should be high level teamplay for any ambitious dev.

I think I misunderstood you, did you mean more solo-q-friendly or more solo (1v1) friendly?

I definitely disagree with the Ladder one, not every Char should be good in 1v1’s and not every Char should be as good as others in Teamfights and Warrior is definitely one that is better in Teamfights.

Making the War more friendly towards newer players is another thing, it doesn’t necessarily mean making it better in 1v1’s, because there are so many Teamfights in solo-q’s with ppl mindlessly Zerging at one node for Minutes and even if it requires skill to chain-stun and to actually make your stun worth it with others attacking, the other teamfight-based skills like shouts, banners etc. don’t really require you to work together with your Team, they’ll benefit from it if they are in the same fight, no matter what they do.

Atm. the War needs small buffs so the competetive Community plays him again and ppl see the builds used and get more familiarized with potential roles of the Warrior – this alone will help newer players a lot IMHO.

Hugs.1856:

- How can the devs make wars more solo-friendly?

Do they need to?

Why not make the game more focused towards teamfights instead?

Volrath.1473:

I leveling on atm.
For some reason i got the feeling that they will be very strong, very soon…

Yepp.

Even if they just make pvp have more teamfights with bigger teams or other Modes, Support-Wars could be insanely stong without any balance-changes at all.

In the current Meta with 1v1’s and 2v2’s being way too important, War’s aren’t that great, because everything they excell at nowadays only gets really useful in bigger Teamfights and everything they lack is punished severely in the current Meta. But if it’s not simply about 1v1’s or either being extremely tanky or dealing enormous damage, but about actual teamfights, Wars are so strong:

1) Teamsupport: Shouts (that can heal and/or remove Conditions), Warhorn and even Banners are great offensive and defensive Team-Support.
2) CC: The amount of CC the Warrior can dish out is incredible and no other class can reach that potential by a very very long shot. The CC is also very versatile in Teamfights: It can be used to Lineback and defensively CC’ing Damage-Dealers or it can be used offensively to reduce kiting or to stun/immobilize to ensure kills.
3) Rezzing: Faster rezzing and more Armor during it aside, they have a great Softrezz which is the Elite Banner.
4) AoE-Fury: One of the best offensive boons and there are tons of builds out there that will profit from AoE-Fury but only very little builds that can give it to teammates, the War can for one easily get perma-fury itself and even give it to Teammates with shouts and Banners.

Atm. there are playable and solid builds, but your Team pretty much has to be geared towards teamfights and focus on only 2 Points, but if you can manage to force Teamfights with 3+ Players on each side, the Warrior is insanely useful.

I understand all the whining about Warriors in the current Meta and how GW2 is played atm, which is mostly small engagenemts and brute force or rockhard-tankyness, but coming from GW1, where Support was incredibly important and where it was possible to have multiple Chars in a Team that didn’t really do DMG, were not tanky and were by no means comparable in healing to main-healers, but were just there to support the Team:

- Offensive and defensive CC (Blinding, Manadrain, Interrupts, Impair Movement in some way).
- Healing and condition/hex-control to eliviate a bit of pressure from the Monks (often 1 Ele had “Draw Conditions” which transfered the conditions of another player to you and it was only used to get rid of blinding on Warriors before they spiked or during the spike – the monks simply had no time and mana for that).

Sth. even slightly similar to what the Warrior in GW2 can do would’ve blown my mind back in GW1. Yes, the DMG isn’t too great and even if you build very very tany, it’s not as tanky as a Ele or Guardian, but in almost everything else, the Warrior is incredibly useful.

Trust me: W8 till Custom Arena’s come out and play a few for-fun games deathmatch-style on the middle Node on Foefire with teams of 4, 5, 6 and maybe even 8 and let sm1 play this build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNBMhJaE0p6N5x5BHOAgKUl6Bc1JX6hYslGA-TsAgzCsIySllLLTWyssZNaYhwUEA

Your Mind will be blown on how useful this build is once we get actual Teamfight-scenarios.

MaXi.3642:

try to play non-bunker ele, then talk… i bet all these eles on vids were S/D bunkers or D/D (semi)bunkers…

True, there are worlds between Tank-Ele’s and non-tanky builds that are imho more UP than OP and very hard to play correctly.

IMHO, Logic would suggest that you will be more likely to loose more often than you’ll win if you solo-q, here’s my reasoning, which is by no means comprehensive. :P

1) Take the factor of leavers and Teams heavily favouring one side: These will very likely randomize at 50% for and against your advantage. If you are good and no leaver, you can even get more than 50% wins out of it.
2) There is also a possibility of you playing against ppl queuing as two, but they can also land in your group, so 50% again, but with a slight disadvantage towards you, because if you solo-q, there is at least one guaranteed player in your group that isn’t in a Team (this would be you! ^^‘)
3) Then there’s of course the possibility of fighting against full Teams, which is completely in favour of the other Team, because if you solo-q, you will get Teams of 2 players in your Team at best, but no full 5-man Teams.

Now even if the Matchmaking was perfect and everyone in a match was exactly at the same skill-level, the fact that solo-q’s can be matched up against full groups heavily favours not solo-q’ing to a point where it’s statistically extremely likely that you will drop under 50% wins while solo-q’ing.

AoE isn’t too strong, you just have bad positioning….

In GW1, AoE was much stronger, there were more Players in a Team and more situations in which you HAD to ball up.

In GW2, the only situation where you need to ball up is when hardrezzing someone.

Try this: If you see sm1 dealing lots of AoE, don’t stand close to your allies – it really does work wonders!

I sometimes play a glass-cannon Fire-Staff-Ele and it’s ridiculous how bad many players are – I often deal 3x the amount of DMG I should be able to, just because of bad positioning.

There are some good tanky support-builds on War that play very similarly to Azshenes Support-Guardian, so I think that we might see a bit more of them.

Here’s the build:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-sF-t;1VKkN0_47LVQ0;9;69TT;40;008B39B7oG6;2ZF18ZF183Jf

Yes, the Shatter-Mesmers combo is very strong and has a rather low CD and isn’t as hard to land as other combos with similar DPS, but:

1) You’re playing a Thief if I’ve read your Post right and Thief isn’t really very good in a 1v1 vs a Mesmer and I don’t think that it’s wise (and not even possible at all) to make all MU’s balanced in a 1v1. So simply try an avoid 1v1’s against Mesmers.
2) Playing a Mesmer requires tons of Skill. Only using the Portal right is one of the hardest things to do in this game.
3) Playing against a Mesmer also requires a lot of Skill, so learn the MU before complaining.
4) In the current Meta, Mesmers aren’t that great to begin with, especially the glass-cannon shatter-builds that don’t kill anything in this tanky meta and get totally pwned by conditions and currently, everyone plays 1-2 very strong condition-builds in their setup, like: HGH, Trap-Rangers, Necros and even condition-mesmers.

stop whining, Mesmers aren’t the big Problem atm, IMHO, OP builds aren’t – better start buffing some skills/traits/classes no1 uses and see how we can deal with potentially strong builds then instead of just trying to fix the good builds.

Regarding the number of Players – what will be the minimum and max of Players?

SAtaarcoeny.8476:

so im number 7 on the leader boreds we win everygame this morning and then 1 game we are winning 480 – 150 and the game crashes then i end up rank 25??? (we won that game btw)

dc when your winning should not drop you in MMR in no world does that make any sense.

I see no way around it or ppl will just pull out the cable when they are about to loose….

How can ppl not understand the logic behind this decision?

Yes, there might be a Problem with inactive Players, but:

When introducing such a big new feature, there are lots of possibilities of Issues to arise and you can basically categorize them in two groups:

1) Issues that arise because of the number of Players and Data.
2) Issues with the System itself, that can be spotted even by a small number of Players.

ANet just needs to cut out the first part of possible Problems so they can identify the Problems better and solve them faster.

It’s simply a way of making it possible to tackle Problems in smaller Portions and dealing with them more efficiently. Top-50 is simply an arbitrary barrier they’ve set and they probably have good reasons for it.

I think we’ll be able to play CA’s faster if ANet approaches it intelligently rather than throwing it out there and having to work on a huge load of Problems like bugs, server-crashes, latency-problems and other logistic stuff at once, where it’s really hard to identify and fix the Problems.

Horribly misworded and confusing question bro. ^^’

You can probably throw the gathered Answers right out the window cuz nobody really understood what you’ve meant.

IMHO, there needs to be a certain change in the Game-Mode, because 5v5 Conquest just doesn’t fully use GW2’s potential as a competetive Game:

1) Too many 1v1’s or other small engagements, which are less balanced, more “rock-paper-scissor”, require less skill than teamfights, restrict the possibility of different builds too much and are just less fun.

2) The heavy focus on Conquest also restricts how you plan your strategy and how you approach a game, favouring certain compositions heavily. In GW1, especially in GvG, there were tons of ways and playstyles to win the game (Teamfights, Splitting up to raid the base, drawing out a game to “Victory or Death”, win with superior Movement around the Map etc.) In PvP as it is now in GW2, the secondary Objectives aren’t important enough to allow for such diverse strategies.

3) The more I play GW2, the more I feel that maybe 5v5 isn’t the best format either, I’d probably like 6v6 a bit more (on the current Maps) and I could even envision 8v8 working great with other Game-Modes like GvG. Just imagine how Support-builds could actually become played much more in just 6v6, how much more teamfight-oriented the game would be, how ppl could focus more on secondary Objectives and how Tanks would become less of a Problem.

Yes I know, ANet said multiple times that there are reasons why they chose the conquest-mode and it wasn’t a bad choice and the execution of the Idea of conquest was better than I’ve ever seen in other games like GW2. But the Mode still needs to be reworked a bit and they need to think about other Modes and let the Public decide and test out the stuff. ANet can’t possibly know how the Modes will play out unless they test it on a larger scale.
Sure, they need to distinguish between Ideas that probably won’t work and Ideas that could work, but simply stating that Conquest is the only thing that can work is very likely too rigorous.

TLDR: The Current System won’t work for the future as it is now. They need to play around with different Ideas like more important secondary Objectives, making PvP 6v6 etc. and in the far future, we definitely need sth. like GvG. GvG is just one of the best game-modes I’ve ever played and I can definitely see ways of making the mode work in GW2 with slight changes from what it was in GW1.

1) Split solo-q and team-q with seperate q’s and Ladder.
2) Guild/Team-ranking Ladder
3) New Maps with more important secondary Objectives or fully without Conquest.
4) Really start reworking some skills/traits/runes that don’t get used.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

sirflamesword.3896:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

and how does GvG work in a game without dedicated healers?

About 1000x better than conquest ever will.

this makes no sense since most of the abilities are area-related and perfect for defending zones.

We probably won’t be sure how well GvG could work in GW2 unless we try it out…

Besides, GvG doesn’t necessarily have to be 8v8 IMHO, you can go for 5v5 or 6v6 if it works better with the way GW2 is played.

I don’t see an inherent Problem with GvG and having no dedicated Healers that couldn’t be solved by minor balance-tweaks and changes in the number of players.

In 8v8, it could maybe become a Problem if it’s just too easy to snipe sth. down in the blink of an Eye, but I don’t think pressure-DMG will be a huge Problem if ANet tweaks certain builds a bit, so we have good full-healers, like for example:

- Clerics-Amu Ele that is made a little less tanky than he is now, but with equal or maybe even better Teamheal-potential.
- Shout-War with lot’s of CC could be viable too in 8v8, because what he lacks in pure DMG and 1v1-strength, he can make up for in Teamfights.
- Staff-Ele’s could become much better simply because of the Number of Players.
- Guardians could play a bit more geared towards support (some teams even use Staff-support builds in 5v5 Conquest.)

I don’t see a big Problem in standard-builds like tanks becoming obsolete. Yes, they could become a bit less important (which isn’t a bad thing I guess), but in GvG, there is still a Flagrunner (if the Guard can’t run fast enough, the runner gives him the Flag before you put it into the Pole) and there are Guild-Halls to defend and other Map-dependant objectives.

IMHO, If ANet decides to go for 5v5 or 6v6, there is maybe the need to change sth. about the Flagrunner – could be kinda weird to have 1 Player constantly running in a Team of 5. But you could easily get rid of that Problem by making the Flag spawn only at certain times or sth. like that….

Besides: ANet said that they will bring back GvG at some point (at least that’s what I’ve heard), but there are probably simply too many things on their plate at this point, so we just have to w8.

Rezz.8019:

There are not enough people playing for a system to be accurate. If a rank 800 plays against rank 2, with 20 second queue waiting time before that, then something is definitely wrong.

True, but if the waiting-time would be much longer, then people would probably complain and say: “I’d rather play uneven matches than to w8 15 minutes before each match”.

It’s hard to find a balance between those two options and ANet hasn’t found it yet.

Also, a newly implemented ranking System will always be flawed, because a ranking System needs time and lots of games to become more accurate.

This is one instance where I’m merciful enough to give ANet a little bit more time and I encourage everyone to do so as well.

best wished, “Powerbottom the merciful”! ^^’

Apolo.5942:

You cant have death match with out Healer Classes, Kiting and Ranged classes would overshadow Melee classes even more than they do now (If that is even possible).

I don’t fully agree with you, depending on how the Deathmatch Mode would actually look like.

If Deathmatch was anything with lower numbers than 5v5, you would be right with ranged>melee, but if it would be 5v5 or even 8v8, there would maybe be enough space in the Teamsetup, for some Supporters that help the Melee-classes to attack. There are some great builds that can accomplish that:

- Clerics or Valk-Amu Ele with Glyph of Elemental Power for almost 100% Cripple-Uptime.
- Support-Thief with Caltrops, the caltrops on Dodge and Dancing Dagger for crippling and the Immobilize of the Infiltrator’s Strike and Surprise Shot.
- I’ve even been toying around with some Ele D/D Builds with A LOT of chilled uptime (didn’t work too well so far, but maybe theres sth. to the build after all).

Other than in Conquest, where 5v5’s are rare, in Deathmatch, you could maybe actually play a Char that is a sole Supporter.

The Lack of Healers is another “Problem”. But again, there are some builds with pretty great Support, like of course Ele’s (but less towards tankyness and more towards Support), Shout-Warriors with Healing on Shout and so on, that could maybe work in a deathmatch-Scenario.

I think even in the current Meta, Deathmatch could work – we pretty much would just have to try and see what builds are played.

Serious Problem – Stupid Solution.

Thats why we need good Custom Servers!

Trismegistos.3046:

Skrittball !! (as in huttball)

Haha, that’s actually a cool Idea, cuz Huttball was one of the few things SWtOR did right in PvP, it’s probably one of the most exciting, fun, strategically intense and spectator-friendly game-mode I’ve seen in a Team-based game.

@Topic: I hope for Custom Arenas that will blow our socks off with options to really play the game we want to (2nd objective, kills and Node-cap Point-gain control / switching off certain Nodes).

Oh yeah, and random Map rotation…. It’s getting really annoying….

Denshee.5917:

From a teamplay aspect this is great, but due to the high tankyness of the ele and if you run Ether Renewal, healing only partymembers rarely even put you in a sacrificial position. You can nerf the healing of the ele and that will be good but it feels like you instead can nerf the tankyness and keep the heals, forcing the ele to choose between healing him-/herself or party members. The main issue here lies in the attributes/stats of amulets, toughness and healing power, as these two stats scale the best off each other. Instead I would love to see amulets that maybe give vitality and healing or even a minor nerf to the vitality and add a forth stat. This way the ele would lose the tankyness but keep the healing forcing them to choose how to use it. It would also give enemies the opportunity to burst them down in between healing rotations.

Love the Idea to nerf the Amount of Toughness on the Clerics Amu! Really nice Idea to nerf Tank-Ele’s, but still have them be useful as a Supporter, even if running exactly the same build as the Cantrip-Ele.

I think going down with Toughness on the Clerics AMU to 284 would be worth looking at. Allocating the stat-points to another attribute would be kinda hard though and it could be hard to balance the Amu’s so we don’t destroy anymore builds or nerf sth. too hard that doesn’t need nerfing.

I do think the whole System with the Amulets needs to be reworked anyways, this would be my Idea:

More freedom: You simply get to choose 7 “Stones” (or whatever) that have either 284 on any attribute or +15% crit-DMG + one of the Jewels

Class-specific restrictions: Now to be able to Balance this, which would be even easier than now, you restrict certain classes on how many of these Stones they can put into certain Attributes or maybe even Combinations: For example, an Ele could only put 3 max in either toughness or Healing Power, but only 4 max in toughness+Healing combined.

I think ANet wouldn’t have to worry about too much on different classes at first: Just set a few Limitations on maybe the Ele and on potential Thief or Ele Glass-cannon-builds and just let everyone experiment with it!

Yes, it could lead to balance-problems in the future, but you’d have an easy way of fixing them with the Limitations you could put into this System. Also, you’d maybe get some really cool and interesting builds and even if some of them could be imbalanced, it doesn’t matter, because it’s at least a change of pace!

I don’t see why they wouldn’t implement it if they had enough time… It’s definitely not a priority now, but in the future, it only has benefits:

- ANet always says that they want the game to be beginner-friendly; the cast-bar would go a long way for that.
- Asuras; need I say more?
- If Obs-Mode comes along, it would help as well to make GW2 a better and easier to understand for Spectators.
- Sometimes it’s hard to see Animations properly, even on bigger Chars, because of all the effects…

As a main-ele, I 100% agree with Symbolic – well written!

Another Idea to control the self-heal but keep the support of the ele good could be to simply tone down the Self-Heal in spells like Cleansing Wave and the Dodge-Version of it, but increase the AoE-Heal. Other than simply reducing what you get out of it from Healing Power, this could have the following benefits:

- It would still completely balance the tanky nature of the Cantrip-Ele
- If Healing Power would still be very useful, we could maybe see cleric-Amu Ele’s as heavy supporters. This wouldn’t be imba, if the Ele wasn’t THAT hard to kill, because even though the support would be very strong, you could still focus him down more easily than before.
- I don’t think that other Ele-builds, especially Valk-Amu builds would suffer too much from a little less Self-Heal but more Support-Heal; ppl might have to revisit their playstyle with the Ele, but it wouldn’t make the builds weaker IMHO.

On other Spells like the Trident, you could reduce the Healing, but increase the Radius or sth. I don’t really like the Option with the increased Radius in exchange for less Healing Power, because I think a smaller radius makes for more important positional play, but I guess it would be hard if the Trident gave the Ele himself less Healing than the other Chars although they stand in the same effect….. Idk, maybe it’s exactly as hard as with Cleansing Wave and Stuff…. ^^’

Or, which would be the easiest way: Just balance the tankyness of the Cantrip-Ele around Ether Renewal/Glyph or Signet. Keep all the AoE and dodge-Heal and stuff like that strong, but tone down the “normal” self-heals. Or work on the Cantrips! With that, you’d still have a strong supporter, but he wouldn’t be that hard to kill.

I looooove the Ladder, but not because it’s perfect, cuz it’s not, but because yesterday, there was actually stuff going on in competetive play!

Empiren.6401:

PowerBottom.5796:

Empiren.6401:

Ugh, these builds are just awful. They fall flat in comparison to any range class. Sorry, not today.

Mine?

Well, firstly, thanks for not being to forward and caring about my feelings.

Secondly: You’re dead wrong. ^^’

The double longbow build? Yeah……. I’m not only sure its a horrible build, I’m 100% positive.

As far as point-nuking goes, there are other better builds on most other professions(staff ele or necro for example)
—————————————-

Btw: Your condition AoE is fire, meaning it doesn’t stack damage but duration.

http://gw2.hazno.net/

Low tick damage, gonna take you an awfully long while.

Are you serious right now? Do you really think I don’t know how the Conditions work in this game?….

Besides the build dealing AoE-Burning every 8 Seconds for up to 14 Seconds with max ticks and +40% Burning Duration in total, which equals about 8k in AoE-Condition-DMG, the build is also very resistent against Condition-Removal, because the ticks that apply burning are so frequent.

I don’t know how good your are and if it’s even remotely adequate to discuss with you, but if you take this game seriously, I’d highly encourage you to test out as many builds as possible. At least you could do it if you plan on commenting on the build that vehemently.

Empiren.6401:

Ugh, these builds are just awful. They fall flat in comparison to any range class. Sorry, not today.

Mine?

Well, firstly, thanks for not being to forward and caring about my feelings.

Secondly: You’re dead wrong. ^^’

Nothing comes even close to the Condition-AoE of the first build and even if the second build’s DMG isn’t extremely high, the amount of Immobilize you put out, the Shouts and the Warhorn (and you can easily run a Softrez with it) will make your Team loooove you.

Nice to see ppl actually trying out stuff, especially on the warrior!

It’s IMHO the least understood class in the game, because the traits and skills etc. are pretty interesting and there could be some very good builds if ppl just tried different specs and team-setups.

Here are some of my Builds I’ve been trying out recently:

Double Longbow all the way!

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-so-o;1RKkN0_47L-60;9;5T-9T;124A;13;035AU-F4;24JV05JG47VS

What does the Build do?
AoE Condition-DMG beyond Believe, great to fight on small Nodes where you can spam from a safe Place.

Why double Longbow?

Because of the two hits of the Autoattack and the Range, the longbow is probably the weapon that benefits most from Furious, Rending Strikes and the Earth-Rune. Also, the Longbow F1 is hilariously good. It’s also not a very tanky build, so staying on range is much safer. I still wanted to have the adrenalin boost from versatile Rage though and there I just didn’t get enough Adrenalin and DPS out of other Weapon Sets and couldn’t use the F1-Skills properly when I went for “Adrenal Reserves” (Rifle being the only other Ranged Weapon, but the F1 is horrible, especially in condition-builds). So I said: kitten it and went for Double Longbow and Quick Burst, which allows me to get off a Longbow F1 every 8 Seconds, when I switch Weapons right after the F1 and once in between the F1’s and can fire off Shots to gain Adrenalin.
I also choose to go with 1 Rune of Energy over another Earth, because with Fast Hands, you’ll get the most out of it even if you use only 1 “On-Weapon-Swap Rune”, because of the 10s internal CD and even though Earth rune works good with this spec, the most DPS comes from the F1, by Far!
There are a lot of variations to the build: You can run it more defensively, with Rabid Amu and Soldier-Runes, go for sth. other than shouts (stances + vigorous Focus instead of Inspiring Shouts) or of course go for another Second Weapon-Set and Adrenal Reserves, for a bit mroe versatility.

Condition/Immobilize Build

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-s70F-0-RKkN0_47L-60;9;5T-JJ;124A;108-39-K-F4U;1ZF18ZF182ZH

What does the Build do?

A lot of Bleeding and very reliable and Powerful CC.

I wanted to make a Build that was able to land the Sword F1 reliably, so I came up with the Combo of Rifle 2 (with Leg Specialist), into Sword F1. The build also has good Team-Support with the Warhorn and Shouts and is decently Tanky against both Physical and Condition-based DMG.

PowerBottom.5796:

Take a Condition Hammer / Sword+Shield-Warrior for example, another heavily underused spec.
It has the potential for a 1 Second Stun (Shield bash), followed by a 1-Second Immobilize (Sword 3 + Leg Specialist), followed by a 4 Second-Immobilize (Sword F1) , followed by another second Immobilize (Hammer 3 + Leg Specialist), followed by a 1+ Second Stun (Hammer F1). There are various ways of getting two F1’s in quick succession, be it with Shouts+Inspiring Shouts, Zerker Stance or my favourite – Adrenal Reserves). And with good Adrenalin-gain (again with shouts, zerker-stance or Furious), you can dish this combo (maybe sometimes without shield-bash or Sword or Hammer 3) out every 10-15 seconds. Even without any additional CC on the Utilities, the build has to potential to keep sth. either immobilized or stunned maybe 50% of the time.

But here’s the Problem: There are two timings were the opposing Player can get in a dodge. The first one is easy – the opener: All the Animations to open the combo are quite easy to dodge, only Hammer 3 would be good, but you can’t open with it, because thats the second timing: It’s literally a time-frame of maybe half a second, maybe a quarter if you put everything you can into condition-duration, but it’s possible to dodge after the immobilize and before Hammer F1 Hits. And I’ve tried everything: Standing right on top of the Target, ESC-cancelling or Dodge-Cancelling Animations, I’ve even tried to combo up some Animations and work with ESC or Dodge-Cancelling, I’ve tried the Bolas and Bull’s Charge (even if it did work, I don’t wan’t the combo every 20 or 40 seconds, I want it every 10-15 Seconds), nothing worked, the chain is broken if you use your only halfway reliable opener. So you are stuck with a chain that works if you time it correctly, which isn’t too hard, but it’s useless because every good player will be able to dodge the opener and even if they don’t dodge it sometimes, they still have Defensive CD’s. For such a control-build to work, the combo needs to be nearly impossible to dodge (only through anticipation) and it should have a very low CD, so it actually comes around fast enough, so the opponent runs out of Stunbreakers.

HAHAAA; I’m a genius! ^^’

I forgot the Rune with -1 sec on Weapon Swap!

So if I go 30 on Condition-Duration, I can open with Hammer 3, then Sword 3, then Sword F1 and a few autoattacks and I can switch to hammer for F1 right before Immobilize finishes…

Well, the build is a mess though, the Combo works, but you get way less Adrenalin and utilities and stuff if you don’t go 30 into crit, so it’s still better with a Thief for a guaranteed Immobilize.

I’ve realized that those two Builds work together well on many other Aspects:

- The War is Melee-Only, so the cripple/Immo of the Thief allows him to get autoattacks in, which is essential to build up adrenalin.
- The Weakness of the Thief makes it easier for the War to land a few stuns here and there if he doesn’t wan’t to or can’t fire off the whole combo (to build up pressure and make the Enemy use up CD’s for example), because -50 Endurance-Reg permanently definitely has it’s toll.
- The Combo of the War allows the Thief to easily hang on his daze, because he can land C&D + tactical Strike without any problems at the End of the Combo.
- If the War goes for Shouts, the Thief gets much needed Fury and a bit of also much needed Condi-Removal and other Utilities.
- They are both pretty mobile, so great to roam together.

Now I really wanna test those two builds together out!!!! kekekeke!!!!

ensoriki.5789:

Plague.5329:

Most of the problem is that there’s very little utility in GW2. Everything is just DPS. So when someone does more DPS than you do, there’s no longer any point to using your own way of dealing DPS. Same with builds. Why use one build over another when they’re all just roads to DPS? Just use the one that deals the most.

Skills and overall design just needs to be less obsessed with numbers. Skills need to actively DO things, and those things need to matter far more than the amount of damage they’re dealing.

There is utility in gw2, quite a bit I would say and skills do “do things”
Look at “Surprise Shot” for instance. Really good utility on that skill.
However it’s not backstab. Obviously there’s protection granting skills, blocks, mist form, Elixer U and all that jazz.
There is a lot of % modifiers in this game which generate more interest in straight damage, or going into conditions and not giving a kitten about Protection.

The Focus on raw Power or raw Survival in the current Meta is IMHO not only due to the lack of good support and utility-skills, but also a sign of a pretty unrefined Metagame.

Yeah, the Weakness, the Poison (that doesn’t do great dmg because it’s a Power- not a Condition-build), the Crippling, the short but very reliable and frequent Immobilizes etc. can easily be overlooked, but in the right Team-Setup, it’s pure Gold.

Take a Condition Hammer / Sword+Shield-Warrior for example, another heavily underused spec.
It has the potential for a 1 Second Stun (Shield bash), followed by a 1-Second Immobilize (Sword 3 + Leg Specialist), followed by a 4 Second-Immobilize (Sword F1) , followed by another second Immobilize (Hammer 3 + Leg Specialist), followed by a 1+ Second Stun (Hammer F1). There are various ways of getting two F1’s in quick succession, be it with Shouts+Inspiring Shouts, Zerker Stance or my favourite – Adrenal Reserves). And with good Adrenalin-gain (again with shouts, zerker-stance or Furious), you can dish this combo (maybe sometimes without shield-bash or Sword or Hammer 3) out every 10-15 seconds. Even without any additional CC on the Utilities, the build has to potential to keep sth. either immobilized or stunned maybe 50% of the time.

But here’s the Problem: There are two timings were the opposing Player can get in a dodge. The first one is easy – the opener: All the Animations to open the combo are quite easy to dodge, only Hammer 3 would be good, but you can’t open with it, because thats the second timing: It’s literally a time-frame of maybe half a second, maybe a quarter if you put everything you can into condition-duration, but it’s possible to dodge after the immobilize and before Hammer F1 Hits. And I’ve tried everything: Standing right on top of the Target, ESC-cancelling or Dodge-Cancelling Animations, I’ve even tried to combo up some Animations and work with ESC or Dodge-Cancelling, I’ve tried the Bolas and Bull’s Charge (even if it did work, I don’t wan’t the combo every 20 or 40 seconds, I want it every 10-15 Seconds), nothing worked, the chain is broken if you use your only halfway reliable opener. So you are stuck with a chain that works if you time it correctly, which isn’t too hard, but it’s useless because every good player will be able to dodge the opener and even if they don’t dodge it sometimes, they still have Defensive CD’s. For such a control-build to work, the combo needs to be nearly impossible to dodge (only through anticipation) and it should have a very low CD, so it actually comes around fast enough, so the opponent runs out of Stunbreakers.

But HEY – The Thief has a pretty much guaranteed 1-sec Immobilize he can fire off at pretty much any time that is even a Teleport, so basically impossible to anticipate!!!!

This means that this 1 meager Utility, on it’s own nothing to big, can actually be essential if you team up with another Spec.

And now tell me how many Teams actually utilize stuff like that? None – the competetive Scene is still an Infant.

If The Last Pride [EvIL] or War Machine [WM] would play this game, every now Top-Team would get completely stomped within weeks of them picking up the Game. xD