Guild Wars 2

Crinn.7864:

Centurion.7296:

It feels like Anet makes one thing OP and nerfs the rest to the ground and then a month later; nerfs the OP thing and makes something else OP. Can’t Anet just make everything balanced and leave PvP alone?

They may not be in their best interests to

Great video, thanks for sharing.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Salamander.2504:

Evan Lesh.3295:

I have all the data now. You played everyone one of those games in a 3-man party, which will bump up your effective MMR for matchmaking. Prior to that day you played solo or duo mostly. The performance of your team must not be as good as the MMR bump is trying to account for in premades, so your MMR is adjusting downward to accommodate.

Thanks for looking into this. It’s a relief to know that my MMR is adjusting downwards at least. What still confuses me is, if I remember correctly, we were matched against a lot of 2-3-4-5 man teams that day, who should also get the MMR bump you mentioned. So for whatever reason, the team I was running with just didn’t warrant the bump?

You’re right that other teams you were matched against would have the same bump. It’s possible they were coordinating more or had more practice than your team.

Okay…although I must confess I’m still not clear on how this all works. I just left this match, where I was cannon fodder for a few high-level players who were in a 3-man while I was solo queing (though we had a 2-man on my team). Shouldn’t the Abjured 3-man have an MMR bump that puts them well out of my range? Is this just an anomalous example? I’ll sthu if so but I’m really just trying to understand what’s going on with my metrics. Thanks for the continued responses.

Evan Lesh.3295:

I have all the data now. You played everyone one of those games in a 3-man party, which will bump up your effective MMR for matchmaking. Prior to that day you played solo or duo mostly. The performance of your team must not be as good as the MMR bump is trying to account for in premades, so your MMR is adjusting downward to accommodate.

Thanks for looking into this. It’s a relief to know that my MMR is adjusting downwards at least. What still confuses me is, if I remember correctly, we were matched against a lot of 2-3-4-5 man teams that day, who should also get the MMR bump you mentioned. So for whatever reason, the team I was running with just didn’t warrant the bump?

I think it was nearlight who pointed out that Reaper doesn’t take advantage of of the healing stat, so it’s not the most efficient. My take on it is that you use cele if you want carrion-type hybrid damage (e.g., using Deathly Chill) but with more sustain from the added toughness. Plus the extra precision gives you a bit more leeway when considering whether or not to use the precision modifying traits like Decimate Defenses and Death Perception.

Espire.9723:

…There was a thread lately (pretty much daily at this point) where someone pointed out people are getting stomped by premade teams while playing solo and you finally answered. And your answer was?…

Just a heads up, in case this changes how you frame your argument: the dev quote you are citing is from 11 months ago. Also your English appears to be great.

Hi Evan! Thanks for taking the time to respond. Nope, this is the account I play on. I’m not sure why my match log would stop on 11/21, as I’ve been playing consistently. As mentioned in my above post, I’ve had 205 unranked games on this account between Oct. 28 and Nov. 22. Are you seeing that the matches are absent before 11/21, or after?

Great idea, Cogbyrn and Meow. I was fishing around to see what I could find and I stumbled upon this post of mine, dated to Oct. 28th: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Is-this-DH-Nerf-Enough-to-Calm-the-Tears/first. My post links a screenshot, which shows my win/loss ratio as of Oct. 28th.

Here is the data from Oct. 28th: https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/208816/dh1.jpg

On Oct. 28th, I had 1787 unranked matches and a 51.32% win-rate. Currently, I have 1992 unranked matches and a 50.80% win-rate. If you do the math, that means between Oct. 28th and Nov. 22nd (a 25 day period), my win-rate (over 205 games) was 46.27%. Because I was exclusively queing ranked up until HoT, that means my win-rate has dropped by 9% since Oct. 28th.

Cogbyrn.7283:

The point is that you losing X games in a row is likely to happen if you have a 50% chance of winning a match based on matchmaking, especially with a larger sample space. It has nothing to do with your skill. It’s actually probable that you’ll hit streaks like that.

So the point is, you don’t actually know if you are worse than the game thinks. You just had a bad day. Human beings are really terrible at intuiting probabilities.

When it was just me having a “bad day,” I was in total agreement with what you’ve said, but this losing streak is part of a much longer streak that’s been going on since Oct. 23rd. Unfortunately I don’t have the data beyond the last 10 matches to actually show this. Maybe a Dev can pop in here and supply that info, and just maybe he’ll prove that I’m full of it. But I didn’t make a post out of anger after only 10 games.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Salamander.2504:

Cogbyrn.7283:

All I got from that Screenshot is that over the course of roughly 2000 unranked matches, you are at about a 50% win rate.

Could it possibly get more balanced than that?

99% of those matches were pre-HoT.

Also, watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T0e1V1qovI

I’m not really sure the point you are trying to get across. By stating in my first post that I’d like my MMR lowered, I’m openly acknowledging that I’m worse than the game thinks I am.

Cogbyrn.7283:

All I got from that Screenshot is that over the course of roughly 2000 unranked matches, you are at about a 50% win rate.

Could it possibly get more balanced than that?

99% of those ~2k games were from before the expansion; my win-rate was balanced pre-HoT. Now, it’s not.

Haha, count me in meow!

Those games were all played on Reaper.

Hi ANet and Evan Lesh,
Pre HoT, I was able to get a (55%) win-rate in Ranked matches. Unfortunately, I don’t have the “skill” necessary to compete in the expansion. Is it possible to lower my MMR artificially? I’m afraid I’m going to have to keep losing like this for a long time for the system to lower my MMR, and it’s really not fun.

I’m not being snarky. Thanks.

To the forum trolls: I tried to “L2P,” but clearly it wasn’t enough for me.

OP is right

Cam Ron.4170:

…However, for some reason +vitality doesn’t add to your life force pool in sPvP, and with our high base HP combined with the fact that power damage seems more common, I find toughness scales way better than vitality in sPvP

Actually it does, but you need to give it a few seconds when swapping amulets for the change to show up in your UI.

+1 to Dristig: there is a reason Carrion is so popular on Reaper, and Valkyrie accomplishes the same thing.

You lack ranged damage, which makes you susceptible to being kited. If it were me I’d try and fit the axe or staff in there to round the build out; this will make you more effective at side-points. “Kite the reaper” is well known by now, and it can really mess with people’s “go-to” strategy if they get hit by a reaper while kiting/running away. Axe gets most of my killing blows for that reason.

+1 to OP

Blaine Tog.8304:

spoj.9672:

Axe fills it barely due to its range and axe 2 makes up some of the loss on the auto.

Axe 2 is actually not much of a DPS increase. I’ve run a bunch of time tests on golems and it’s really hard to puzzle out the difference in time-to-kill. It is a DPS increase, but a really, really small one, and only if you let your autoattack animation complete before starting up 2. If you pop 2 immediately every time it’s off cooldown, you’re going to interrupt an autoattack and actually lose DPS. It’s mostly just useful for the LF generation.

So if I were to cancel axe 2 as it’s coming to an end (to avoid the after cast) and switch back over to AA, would that be the best DPS?

Unranked que is broken. Once you que in unranked (and your party accepts), the que is immediately abandoned.

Out of curiosity, why not just que unranked?

Indure.5410:

Salamander.2504:

Really guys, just dodge it? Every time there is a DH QQ thread, there is a horde of “L2P L2Dodge noob” comments.

Thus far, we’ve been instructed to dodge (1) true shot (4s CD), (2) hunter’s ward (45s CD), (3) dragon’s maw (60s traited), (4) ToF (24s traited), (5) and Spear of Justice/Hunter’s Verdict (~20 s).

If I wanted to dodge all of these, I would need 7.6 dodges in a 20 second period. Instead, I have 2 dodges in this time period (or 4 if I’m starting fresh). That means at best I can dodge 4/5 of your true shots (hooray), but facetank hunter’s ward, dragon’s maw, ToF, and Spear of Justice (did I mention heavy light?). There is a reason everyone and their grandma is rolling a DH.

TLDR; You can cool your jets with the L2Dodge rhetoric.

Personally I would suggest: reflect the true shot, walk (slowly) out of the hunter’s ward, dodge the Dragon Maw, eat the Test of Faith initial damage, and stability the Spear of Justice.

Or, use your class’ unique mechanics of charge/stealth/pets to neutralize the traps and put so much pressure on the DH that they can’t stay on their bow, alleviating the true shot damage and hunters ward (although HW was never really a threat).

Great tips.

Vikkela.7261:

Salamander.2504:

Thus far, we’ve been instructed to dodge (1) true shot (4s CD), (2) hunter’s ward (45s CD), (3) dragon’s maw (60s traited), (4) ToF (24s traited), (5) and Spear of Justice/Hunter’s Verdict (~20 s).

Why are you wasting a dodge roll on Hunters ward?

Despite the long cast time, it’s surprisingly easy to get caught in a Hunter’s ward between all the traps, wells, overloads, and other animation spam that happens in a team fight. If you notice the skill halfway through the cast, there isn’t enough time to run out (180-210 units/s vs 360 radius), so you have to dodge or be trapped.

Ragnarox, every single post of yours are condescending ad hominem insults. Stay on topic, buddy. This isn’t about me.

I definitely have this, there is no doubt in my mind.

It’s never my fault…I swear…

:(

Really guys, just dodge it? Every time there is a DH QQ thread, there is a horde of “L2P L2Dodge noob” comments.

Thus far, we’ve been instructed to dodge (1) true shot (4s CD), (2) hunter’s ward (45s CD), (3) dragon’s maw (60s traited), (4) ToF (24s traited), (5) and Spear of Justice/Hunter’s Verdict (~20 s).

If I wanted to dodge all of these, I would need 7.6 dodges in a 20 second period. Instead, I have 2 dodges in this time period (or 4 if I’m starting fresh). That means at best I can dodge 4/5 of your true shots (hooray), but facetank hunter’s ward, dragon’s maw, ToF, and Spear of Justice (did I mention heavy light?). There is a reason everyone and their grandma is rolling a DH.

TLDR; You can cool your jets with the L2Dodge rhetoric.

Transfusion only works on friendlies in the downed state (they still have red in their health bar).

No and No, just walk away from the mob and eventually they’ll catch up.

ehtom.5047:

No offence, but this is why devs balance games…

It doesnt make sense to take a class which is almost good and make massive changes to 15 things.

None taken, but could you elaborate on what’s bad? I can explain myself a bit, if that helps.

Buffs:
1) Stab on Ftg is too short. Compare this to 100% stability uptime from Bountiful Disillusionment.
2) Who uses Parasitic Contagion? Needs a buff to be viable.
3) Compare Spiteful Spirit with Lingering Curse. You can see what I’m trying to do here.
4) Here I’m dreaming, but it would be tons of fun to cast axe 3 while channeling axe 2.
5) Axe 1 has a damage coefficient of 0.77, single target.
6) Axe 2 is just a minor DPS increase to axe 1…if this is going to be a “burst” skill, it needs a damage coefficient to match.
7) There is currently no LF generation on the OH dagger. It is the only weapon that can boast this deficiency.
8) Blighters boon now requires Spite. Bye Bye build diversity.
9) The health generation on Soul Eater is useless.
10) Compare Relentless Pursuit with Druid’s Natural Stride. Underwhelmed yet?
11) Speaks for itself. These skills work 50% of the time on a good day.

Nerfs:
1) This skill is highly overtuned.
2) Rise is fairly well balanced, but after using it in both BWE’s and since Oct 23rd, I think it could use a modest shave.
3) Compare this skill and the CD to the DS equivalent.
4) Compare this skill and the CD to the DS equivalent.
5) Unimportant, but I think the near perma weakness is slightly overtuned.
6) Unimportant and possibly stupid, but VP just has so much going for it.

QoL:
1) I don’t think anyone will argue with this.

If I were in charge, here would be my patch notes for Tuesday, Nov. 17.

Buffs:

1) Foot in The Grave—1 extra stack of stability, duration extended by 1 second (2 stacks for 4 s, from 1 stack for 3 s).
2) Parasitic contagion—5% extra healing (15% from 10%).
3) Spiteful spirit: CD is removed, damage is normalized to the axe 3 skill. Secondary effect added which provides 5s of retal on critical hits with a 10s CD.

4) Make axe 3 instant cast.
5) Increase damage coefficient of axe 2 from 2.88 to 3.0.
6) Increase damage coefficient of axe 1 from 0.77 to 0.8.
7) Dagger 4 now provides 2% lifeforce for each condition transferred to an enemy.

8) Blighters boon: In addition to the current effects, boons from allies now provide 1/2 the healing and 1/2 the lifeforce on a 2s cooldown.
9) Soul eater: Remove life siphon from soul eater. Increases GS attack speed by 15%.
10) Relentless pursuit: Additional bonus of receive 3 s of swiftness and 1 s of quickness when critically hit, CD of 10 s.
11) Death’s charge and Grasping Darkness are now no longer buggy and working as intended.

Nerfs:

1) Deathly chill—reduce condi damage scaling from 3.0 to 2.5.
2) Rise damage reduction is reduced to 33% (from 50%).
3) Executioners scythe: CD increased to 35 s (from 30 s).
4) Soul Spiral: CD increased to 35 s (from 30 s).
5) Lingering curse: weakness duration reduced to 4 s (from 5s) on critical hits.
6) Vital persistence: Shroud skill CD reduction is removed from this trait and instead added to Unyielding Blast. (optional :P)

Quality of Life changes:
1) You may now see the cooldowns of you heal, utility, and elite skills while in Shroud. As before, you may not activate these skills in Shroud.

+1 Axe needs buff. Compare Axe 2 to ranger longbow 2. Does the lack of a projectile really justify a 25% damage cut?

Ideas to buff axe:
-Make axe 3 instant cast (my favorite).
-5% damage increase to axe 1—damage coefficient of 0.8 (from 0.77)
-5% damage increase to axe 2—damage coefficient of 3.0 (from 2.88)
-Make axe 1 a chain skill with 3 attacks. The 1st 2 attacks apply vuln, the last attack applies some boon.

+1

I noticed that neither of you guys (the 2 posters above) run unholy martyr or vital persistence…how does that affect your gameplay? How do you (or your build) work around the fast RS depletion? I see you load up on traited spectrals, so do you compensate the lack of UM/VP by having great LF regen?

SlayerSixx.5763:

Thing is, he CAN get focused :P. 5 seconds from virtue + shelter is 7 seconds of block. He can’t attack while sheltering, so its really just the virtue that rustles peoples jimmies. More traps = less meditations. Less mediations = less heal.

On paper that sounds fine, but when you pair the new (amazing) virtues with RF, that amounts to 7 seconds of block, plus 3 seconds of invuln and another 5 second block, (that’s 15 seconds for those of you following from home), and losing 2k healing from 1 meditation isn’t a huge issue because F2 heals for 4k (as opposed to 1.6 k pre-HoT). F2+RF=8k heal.

Just saying.

+1

This needs more attention.

Yeah, ANet did make 2 balanced elite specs: Reaper and Chronomancer. (Is zerker balanced now, or does it need more buffs?)

Not surprisingly, both of these specs are the ones most similar (in strengths and weaknesses) to their base profession. Reaper or not, I still always focus the necro first.

Do you guys provide dental insurance? What is the dress code policy?

Just kidding, good luck with your team!

The announcement below (from Nov. 2) could be interpreted to mean that ANet is indeed planning on putting out a balance patch before Dec. 1. This announcement post-dates the quick balance patches (nerf to blighters boon, DH traps, etc.) that occurred in late October, but predates the “quick and dirty” Nov. 4 buff to berzerker. Consequently, I expect that ANet is in the works of a balance patch between now (Nov. 12) and Dec. 1.

“On December 1, once we’ve finalized all the teams that qualify for the ESL Guild Wars 2 Pro League and we have a chance to let balance settle from the launch of our expansion, we’ll activate our inaugural in-game Player vs. Player league season!”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-road-ahead-for-2015/

Raven.9603:

Unranked Arena: …but MMR is not a factor.

Unranked does use MMR for matchmaking, but it’s separate from your ranked MMR.

Zietlogik.6208:

I still play condi mes, with no chrono, and still have the easiest of times.

Can you link your build? I’m having no success with condi mesmer ever since the nerf to MtD.

Salamander.2504:

Dear Dev’s,
Can we get a response on this topic? It would be such a great QoL change to see the cooldowns of our utility skills while in Shroud.

Thanks!

Salamander.2504:

Dear Devs,
Offhand dagger is the only weapon with no way to generate life force whatsoever. Can we get some life force generation on the offhand dagger? If not, why?

Thanks!

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Salamander.2504:

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Salamander.2504:

dank.3680:

Salamander.2504:

I play reaper and basically just get wrecked. After playing for a few weeks now, it’s pretty clear that giving reaper stability doesn’t do a thing to change the “focus the necro” attitude. Reaper has all of the weaknesses of base necro, with the exception of decent stab uptime. It’s actually disappointing. Maybe once ANet fixes the power creep won’t matter so much, but attrition is a poor imitation of real sustain (blocks/invulns, etc.).

Seems like you don’t have a build that generates life force good enough. That’s the key to being a tanky beast knowing how to get and use that LF>

Na, that’s not it, unfortunately (I wish it were that simple). When there’s a target above your head in a mid fight as a necro, you have to be spiderman to survive.

So you are telling me when 4 guys focus you, it then becomes difficult for you to survive? <INSERT KEANU REEVES MEME HERE>

Relax dude, I’m just pointing out that reaper has all the same weaknesses as base necro. We can’t go invuln or block, we just have to eat it.

Take that flesh wurm and tp out. You are now literally God.

Yeah I guess I’ll have to try it out again; it’s been awhile. I always miss that 3rd utility spot.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Salamander.2504:

dank.3680:

Salamander.2504:

I play reaper and basically just get wrecked. After playing for a few weeks now, it’s pretty clear that giving reaper stability doesn’t do a thing to change the “focus the necro” attitude. Reaper has all of the weaknesses of base necro, with the exception of decent stab uptime. It’s actually disappointing. Maybe once ANet fixes the power creep won’t matter so much, but attrition is a poor imitation of real sustain (blocks/invulns, etc.).

Seems like you don’t have a build that generates life force good enough. That’s the key to being a tanky beast knowing how to get and use that LF>

Na, that’s not it, unfortunately (I wish it were that simple). When there’s a target above your head in a mid fight as a necro, you have to be spiderman to survive.

So you are telling me when 4 guys focus you, it then becomes difficult for you to survive? <INSERT KEANU REEVES MEME HERE>

Relax dude, I’m just pointing out that reaper has all the same weaknesses as base necro. We can’t go invuln or block, we just have to eat it.

dank.3680:

Salamander.2504:

I play reaper and basically just get wrecked. After playing for a few weeks now, it’s pretty clear that giving reaper stability doesn’t do a thing to change the “focus the necro” attitude. Reaper has all of the weaknesses of base necro, with the exception of decent stab uptime. It’s actually disappointing. Maybe once ANet fixes the power creep won’t matter so much, but attrition is a poor imitation of real sustain (blocks/invulns, etc.).

Seems like you don’t have a build that generates life force good enough. That’s the key to being a tanky beast knowing how to get and use that LF>

Na, that’s not it, unfortunately (I wish it were that simple). When there’s a target above your head in a mid fight as a necro, you have to be spiderman to survive.

I play reaper and basically just get wrecked. After playing for a few weeks now, it’s pretty clear that giving reaper stability doesn’t do a thing to change the “focus the necro” attitude. Reaper has all of the weaknesses of base necro, with the exception of decent stab uptime. It’s actually disappointing. Maybe once ANet fixes the power creep won’t matter so much, but attrition is a poor imitation of real sustain (blocks/invulns, etc.).

Conditions are not the problem in the current meta at all.

Knights gear is a ~20% dps loss to marauders (a bit more for zerker, which only warriors use), and a ~37% incoming damage reduction (for a light armor class).

Please fix the immobilize bug. It’s almost a guaranteed death during a mid-fight. It happens all the time (at least once or twice a game), but I don’t yet know why. It’s not tied to the immobilize condition as far as I can tell.

For those of you who have not experienced this, it’s when your character becomes totally immobile, and you have to /dodge out of it.

Portal used to start the CD right when you place the first one, right? As of the patch tonight, it doesn’t go on CD until the second one is placed.

dank.3680:

Salamander.2504:

Xillllix.3485:

It’s not just the Dragon Hunter that has been balanced poorly. Ever played staff ele in PvP? Yesterday I got destroyed by a reaper with 5-6k cleaves and 1-shot by a Daredevil with a 11k vault and a 6k uppercut following.

Meanwhile on staff ele it takes 3-4 seconds to channel any kittening skill that does 40% that damage. GW2 skill/class balance is soooooo bad now.

5-6K cleave on Reaper is Gravedigger spam. Either that or your cleave numbers might be exaggerated?

Anyways, I agree that virtually all of the elite specs need to be brought down in some fashion.

I can achieve 5-6k on third hit of either GS or RS 1 chains. 10kish with gravedigger… In pvt gear.. Not always on but squishies and I have to get my 25 vuln/might up.

The quote from XilliX above makes a 5-6k cleave sound common, when its clear that it can only occur under a special set of circumstances (crit+lots of might and vuln). In any case, the 3rd AA chain of GS and Shroud have damage coefficients of 1.4 and 1.2 respectively, which isn’t impressive compared to any other damage coefficients from auto-attacks or otherwise. Are we really supporting that Reaper (GS!) AA is OP now? I think not…

Cogbyrn.7283:

irishww.7842:

People keep saying the Reaper is good in sPvP, but I see more threads about why they suck in sPvP than I do people posting builds that work. Which is it?

We’ll probably have to wait until the ranked season starts to really get a feel. People claim things don’t work against “good” players all the time, but words are wind. We’ll see how things shake out as time progresses, and I’ve seen a few builds pop up re: sPvP in particular that I think have potential.

And Lannisters always pay their debts.

irishww.7842:

People keep saying the Reaper is good in sPvP, but I see more threads about why they suck in sPvP than I do people posting builds that work. Which is it?

Reaper is good in PvP. The complaints are on the GS auto-attack speed. GS is still a great weapon despite the complaints, just don’t use the auto-attack.