Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer – This is based on my understanding of the ranked matchmaking system.

Consider these two matchmaking points

1 – A match will be made between players within a similar pip range
2 – These 10 players will be grouped based on their MMR

Because of point 2, there will in effect be an “A Team” and a “B Team” in every match.

The official reasoning for this is so good players will advance through the ladder quickly.

However, if a player loses a large number of games such that his MMR declines below the average for his pip range, he will always be grouped with the “B Team”.

In most games losing matches results in that player facing weaker opponents so he has an even match up. In the current league system there are points where you cannot be matched with weaker opponents (division thresholds etc).

What happens at this point is the player in question always faces a stronger team with a weaker one because his lower MMR. If the range of player skill is significant in a specific pip zone, the gap between the A and B teams will be large on average and will result in constant losses due to the matchmaking system. Every loss will lower this player’s MMR, and the lower MMR will result in even worse matchups, up until they are essentially unwinnable. This is the MMR hole.

I feel this is a fundamental flaw in the system and is contributing the the consistent one sided match ups I see in my progression through the leagues.

Iirc there are two sigils of speed. The one you want gives quickness on weapon swap. You run that because fortifying bond will convert your 1s of quickness to into 2+ for your pet, which you can copy back to yourself using heal.

Marauder or mender, BM/NM/Druid. Speed and air sigils. Search and rescue/heal as one/rampage as one. Smokescale/bristleback. Fill in the blanks.

Cycle through af very quickly. Use reflect wall and blast/leap. Dodge properly and look for the windows to spike.

Its gone????

/15chars

Since ESL is marketing, anet wants to make it entertaining to watch. They likely decided that class stacking was somewhat responsible for s1 and they don’t want a repeat of that.

Vine Surge gets interrupted by pressing the auto attack button (with a target). This doesn’t happen with any other staff skills or even utility skills. It would be helpful if it was given the skill queue function that everything else has.

Axialbloom.8109:

Ryan.9387:

I wish I could give
Regen
Fury
Swiftness
Prot (75% of protect me)
Vigor
Condi clear
Heal and
Shocking aura
all aoe all with one skill on a 25s cd.

Wow please buff ranger. Armor of earth can gives stab, that is what is important with that skill and why it warrants a large cooldown. Don’t compare traited vs untraited versions of two different skills cherry picked for whatever point you are trying to prove. Ele carries some broken utility skills that only search and rescue can hope to match in value to a team.

Not only did you take traits from 4 different trees, but you even took 2 Grandmaster traits from water. Nice work, champ.

Kinda sorta right. I did pick four traits to list all the options but have clarified that in the original post. Secondly soldier runes prevent you from needing two water gm traits.

I wish I could give
Regen
Fury (option 2)
Swiftness (option 2)
Prot (75% of protect me) (option 1)
Vigor
Condi clear
Heal and
Shocking aura
all aoe all with one skill on a 25s cd.

Wow please buff ranger. Armor of earth can give stab, that is what is important with that skill and why it warrants a large cooldown. Don’t compare traited vs untraited versions of two different skills cherry picked for whatever point you are trying to prove. Ele carries some broken utility skills that only search and rescue can hope to match in value to a team.

Edit: fixed some stuff

Druids have an issue with 1v1. In order to get kills on bruisers it must spec glassy. Then it can die 1v1. If it wants to survive it can tone back to a more conservative amulet and will never lose a 1v1, but will also have trouble resolving them too.

Your best bet is to run reaper (not wvw) or scrapper. If you are really really good you can also consider revenant. Reaper will get kills when the druid did not take condition clear (obv). Scrapper has the reflects and blocks to handle the druid at any range. Rev is just so high on damage that it can catch a druid off guard and get a kill.

Edit: rip smartphone typing

Take a look at crusader with mm/skirm/druid.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWTnUqA9sg1CCWsActglOBzpvFAAvSjp50nWQibhdiz/0D-TZBEABMt/ABHBgsKDAwDAw9LBAA

Protect me prevents capture point contribution.

Lingering light should be reworked to some new functionality. More tank is not good at this moment.

LughLongArm.5460:

With this change+ bleed damage trait change, do you think we’ll c trap builds coming back?

I don’t think so. No settlers or cele anymore. The hidden barbs change is nothing to the amulet removal.

This must be like the tenth buff to striders defense.

Show an x2 next to the icon for leagues up to our previous highest. Like prestige but for multiple seasons.

Example: Alice reached ruby on season 1. Her bar will show an x2 until she hits diamond, when it will change to x1.

Like mastery points for pvp.

You should never use short bow in any game mode.

Dark times are ahead if clerics stays.

All bruisers will switch in two directions.
1) Damage
2) Bunker (clerics)

The clerics players will realize they cannot kill anything and will resort to decap builds. The damage players will soon realize they cannot kill the decap players and side points will become sumo wrestling matches. Expect lb druids, decap scrappers, staff tempests and the occasional reaper or rev.

This patch will probably kill trap builds. (PvP)

BM builds with clerics will probably become the dominant side point build. Probably longbow staff decap since other classes will probably just switch from celestial to cleric.

Dark times are ahead for sidepoint play.

There is no incentive to make it exciting so teams just play the fotm comp to try to win.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Ryan.9387:

Prob druid. It can’t lose any 1v1 and can resolve every matchup but the most tanky builds.

Mesmer- stalemate
Ele- killed (slow)
Necro- killed (slow)
Engie- stalemate
Druid- n/a
Theif- killed
Warrior- killed
Rev- killed
Guard- killed

I have yet to meet a druid that even came close to killing me 1v1 on my reaper.

You literally can’t even hold the cap if you are fighting me 1v1, and if you try and hold a cap/decap you will die without a doubt.

Admittedly they have good sustain…. but boonstrip > druid…. sorry.

To sum up the Condi clear:
Empathic Bond (3 per 10s)
Healing Spring (12 per 24s)
Druidic Clarity (All per AF use (10s charge time after leaving af))
Seed of Life (2 per 1s in AF)
Sunless runes + natural stride (half duration of chill/cripple/immob)

All of this heavily leans the match towards the condi druids favor. Most rangers run power or celestial so you will have easy matches the majority of the time though.

Pair it with sunless runes for 50% reduction on cripple chill and immob. This makes condi ranger vs condi necro an easy win.

This combo also helps get rid of cover conditions so you don’t clear trash conditions with things like healing spring.

The move speed bonus is just the sprinkles on top.

It won’t be viable in tournament play because a rev can take energy sigils with two stacks of stab per dodge traits.

Aside from that scrapers can make a better decap build because they have better stab uptime, better cc, and reflects to handle longbow 4.

Your best bet is to make a build designed to kill rather than to decap as these builds are usually much harder to counter.

The guy with the big canon. Aoe knockdown on a (5)s cd.

Ps anet: A + 5s is not something to filter as language.

Prob druid. It can’t lose any 1v1 and can resolve every matchup but the most tanky builds.

Mesmer- stalemate
Ele- killed (slow)
Necro- killed (slow)
Engie- stalemate
Druid- n/a
Theif- killed
Warrior- killed
Rev- killed
Guard- killed

R/Rt SoS spam

R/P should also work.

It stacks protection on other allies during cast and stacks protection on all allies during the after cast sandstorm.

The overpowered skill is tempest earth overload. Cast it and have your allies stand still to give 30s+ of protection.

Overload at the gate so everyone starts the first fight with 10s of protection.

Imo a boar with the marksmanship duration trait. It’s a little rng but you can pick up some crazy cc items from him.

Try playing without it.

Condi trap druid beats dh in my experience. The only times you will die is if you get caught with no af and no stab in a big combo.

You have the rev a toughness primary stat amulet and are suprised he didn’t die first?

Booms.3952:

So your guys’ suggestion is that diamond players get 2 hour q times, only to face the exact same people due to long q time diversification?
Nice

I suggest a reset to their rank and pvp meta achievement.

So their effort in abusing the challenger leaderboard would be wasted.

I thought you quit.

I don’t feel excited about proleague.

I don’t want to make a guild challenger team.

I don’t even want to form a pug team for ranked as most of my friends don’t log in anymore.

My ASAP teamates have either quit the game or don’t log in for more than an hour every third day or so.

I can’t hope for a balance patch for the next two months even with obvious imbalance.

It doesn’t matter if I win vs PZ or another full team in ranked, I get the same single pip that all the players worse than me get for beating vastly inferior teams. Instead I have to queue for 5-8 min to fight ESL or AG teams to earn the exact same pip as others can earn by fighting absolute newcomers.

There is more that bothers me but this what comes to mind right now.

I guess I’m just here to express my disappointment with the pvp I loved for the last three years.

Bye is when you win when the other team is missing one or more players.

I don’t know about number two. Maybe it was a forfeit?

+1.

Go for the Eyes: Fixed an issue that allowed this ability to trigger blindness at an incredibly fast rate. This trait now has a 12-second internal cooldown.

“Incredibly Fast Rate” – TIL Incredibly fast is once every 4s

I don’t think this is right for a tournament of this magnitude. If there is any issue with the seeding worthy teams could be robbed of a spot.

Make sure you entangle or something equivalent right as the f2 lands. It’s got a ton of spike and can nearly one shot players if you can get the thing to hit.

It’s quite nice seeing at least a few changes each week. I think it’s much healthier for the game.

I’m pretty sure it is because of PvP. For instance my team won last AG by running two bunker druids and causing most of the matches to end on timer. It was really boring but was so effective we could stand still 1v1 and not die.

Its dumb to get knocklocked without being able to see why.

Ranger got nerfed FOUR TIMES on a single mechanic at the same time.

1) 10s cooldown to enter AF
2) Reduced AF charging
3) Reduced time while in AF
4) Out of combat AF degeneration

It defies logic and has the community rightly upset.

Bonus: Bristleback Pet F2 is no longer the Sharpen Spines ability. The F2 is now Spike Barrage to give you more rewarding control.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Post-BWE3-Druid-Changes

To give you more rewarding control.
Rewarding control….

Please stop running ranger.

First build is interesting. Will have to look into it.

Same reason necros get spinal shivers.

Maybe try to spectate some in houses or scrims. No idea how you should go about that though.

It feels like a needless waste of time especially when refining stacks of materials.

StickerHappy.8052:

Oh I wasnt referring to you though, I was really hitting at the OP, who just vanished and he was the one who thinks MoC is too strong.

I have read every post in this thread. I made my points earlier and see no reason to keep repeating them needlessly.

Its clear that regardless of what approach I take, people will both misinterpret what I say and will ignore my reasoning. Therefore I do not post often and when I do, I usually don’t reply because I don’t like to be dragged into debates on irrelevant issues like what type of non druid ranger runs Moment of Clarity in PvP.

Check out these two stat screens from a couple PvP games I had during beta. This build can perma daze in aoe. It can heal for up to 1.3 million hp per match. It can cleanse up to 1000 conditions a game. It can bunk 2v5. The only limit to how high these numbers get is how many bodies the enemy team throws at you.

Hopefully seeing these screenshots at least gives you some idea of where my views are coming from.

ps – Your elaborate mesmer build is literally a single condi burst from death. A burn guard would eat you alive.