Guild Wars 2

Malediktus.3740:

And that is exactly why its a cheesy tactic which should be fixed. I can understand any commander who gives up on commanding because of this sniping.

Me too. That is why sniping is an excellent strategy. Not only do you win fights, but you also demotivate the enemy. That is how wars are won.

Frankly, I don’t mind Courtyard being in the unranked rotation, but for that map, it would be nice to have build templates (wink wink Anet).

In the mean time, you better have a character on the side dedicated to Courtyard. I always keep a Soldier amulet hammer warrior ready for those Courtyard games.

Ristillath.6745:

Team Leaderboards are coming with HoT already got confirmed by anet.

You should inform yourself before posting QQ threads.

Dude, be nice, that was hardly a QQ thread. It was a suggestion, expressed in neutral terms.

With HoT, indeed, guild LBs will be added to the game. I suppose that if a certain number of players from the same guild (probably between 3 and 5) play together in either SH or conquest (or maybe just SH? That wasn’t clear), they play for the guild LB. So if you want to form a team, create a team guild and start practicing! We don’t have all the informations yet.

Dawdler.8521:

For some reason, it never seem to occur to such players that the other team may actually by some miracle of planet alignment or something be better than your team.

“My team mates are noobs, the opposite team is a full premade running cheesy OP builds”.
- Every soloq hero ever.

Tarkan.5609:

d/p thieves will often black powder -> heart seeker -> steal -> backstab

I never use that combo against shatter mesmers, because when I do play shatter mesmer, I find it so easy to avoid. Especially since it’s so easy to use Steal to interrupt something (a heal or a phantasm), you don’t benefit a lot from doing that predictable combo.

Liam McColgan.7689:

….or not playing ****** lb power ranger like every other *…… im fully sure they are the reason half the community/me personally rage :P That will solve half the problem.

No one likes to be spammed from range especially when they are having a good duel on point.

True enough. Still, there is a difference between being annoyed and actually take the time to write something in map chat, which in the end does nothing good.

Kelthien.8593:

Carighan.6758:

I would be amazed if Inspiration was no longer “the phantasm line”, even though they’re already sawing that one with the traits they stuffed into Chrono and Illusion. Thing is, I don’t like traitlines locking you into specific skillsets, we got few enough overall skills as it is.

Inspiration as the “support line”, I can get that. So with any luck they focus it less on the phantasms and more on support in general.

I agree completely. I loved the necro’s Reaper line: top traits focus on this, middle focus on this, and bottom focus on this. Mix and match if you want.

I’d love to see us have that kind of organization. Top line for phantasm, middle for shatter, bottom for utility/support. Keep the minors generic and independent of a particular play style (don’t force phantasms on all three).

I also agree. It would especially be good to have something like that in Illusions, which is a bit lacking shatter-wise in its adept and master traits. It’s a shame really, because the Master of Fragmentation trait could be a good alternative to a Chronoshatter build.

Tarkan.5609:

Sorel.4870:

Tarkan.5609:

snip

This is all very good, but it doesn’t work against good d/p thieves and their BS->Steal combo from stealth.

you generally can’t see anything [that is melee at least] coming from stealth… thats the whole point of it?

i mean i can see gs#2 of a mesmer while he is in stealth but i can also see sb#1 or pistol#1 on thief in stealth
but these are ranged attacks

the whole point of mug before a backstab is to deal more dmg via mug (which cant even critically hit so thats not a problem) and mainly to get the fury (+ maybe the useful interrupt) if you have 6 in trickery

i cant see a mesmer blinking in stealth… and thats good like that isnt it?

I am not saying it’s bad, I do it all the time (I main thief and mesmer). It’s just that from a pvp perspective, you don’t see a lot of CnD these days, probably because it is relatively easy to avoid (unless you are a mesmer or a ranger). So if OP complains about thieves being a pain in the kitten (and from a mesmer PoV, they really are), you can’t just tell them to watch a melee skill casted at range, because d/p thieves don’t do that.

BlackBeard.2873:

Thank you for sharing. While this is certainly an upgrade over their prior proposal, and will probably get lower durations on a lot of the boons, it still pigeon-holes us into arcana (because it gives the best defense in terms of vigor + prot + cleanses/binds) and water (it either gives all the needed cleanse, or one of the best damage lines if you are dps). It is good to see that there are more people working on this than the one guy who is totally lost.

You guys are amazing! First you were complaining that Arcana was too strong. So some trait lines received buffs (like Fire Magic with the 3s ICD Blinding Ashes, which looks pretty strong), and then you complained that Arcana was too weak. Now they are rebuffing it, and you still complain!

We should wait and see. And maybe think about complaining once we know everything.

Thank you for the tips Manimarco! Thank you Aeolus as well: I watch the streams, but I usually focus on the mesmers. I’ll try to pay more attention to the guardians.

So usually, I should avoid going far, unless the opposite team is snowballing like crazy, right? Because once I am outnumbered, I can’t get away.

Oh, and just one more question: should I use Pack runes or Traveler?

Hello fellow guardians!

After one year and a half, I finally created a guardian. I use the meta meditation hammer/sc-f build, since I don’t have a good knowledge of the profession yet.

I mostly play high mobility roaming builds, namely d/p or s/d thief, shatter mesmer, condi or celestial engineer. So I am a bit lost about what I should do and where I should be in conquest with my slow guardian.

Can you give me some advice about what my role is in team fights, were I should be, and what I should typically be doing in a conquest game? In advance, thank you very much.

It doesn’t mean anything. You shouldn’t really pay attention to it. Ask yourself if your positioning was correct, if you correctly waited/retreated when your team started to wipe, if you were playing according to your profession (example: if you were +1ing and recapping on thief, instead of fighting in the middle of the AoEs or dueling an ele).

If you do all these things, you’ll have a good idea of how well you played. Don’t worry about the score.

Mist Form makes you invulnerable to ANY attack during a few seconds, but the conditions you had on you continue to tick.

It works the same way for mesmer and thief. You probably had conditions on your thief and not on your mesmer. Also, remember that mesmers have a bigger health pool, and the vamp runes proc at higher health, with means they are less likely to die of conditions (well, that’s not true, because most of the time your Last Refuge procs and cleanse your condis, but still).

Jumping Puzzles are my favorite part of PvE. The last one they added in the Silverwastes was so cool: long, with beautiful landscapes, easy, a nice expedition to do with a friend.

The “Not So Secret” JP was also fun, in a head-banging kind of way. Unfortunately, I was not around when SAB was a thing. I hope it will return soon.

Tarkan.5609:

i like the idea of having an icon for steal being off cd so that you can see it – but then for example why not also show us the life force necros have? and i doubt that will ever happen

animation + cast time? no
that would destroy a lot of combos we currently have

also you can predict steals
look at your opponent’s animation… casting c&d while being out of range? dodge it => you will both dodge steal/inf.signet and c&d (likely also basilisk venom) making the thief waste a lot of initiative and their steal
that is how i (S/D thief) beat burst D/D thieves as they heavily rely on c&d but are kittened if they miss it – if they hit it full dmg thieves burst me down 100-0 with c&d + stab

This is all very good, but it doesn’t work against good d/p thieves and their BS->Steal combo from stealth.

Sorry OP, but Steal being instacast is too fundamental for the thief gameplay, and I don’t think it will ever change. Try to predict it (a lot of d/p thieves do 5->2->F1), but if the thief is good, the only thing you can do is trying to interrupt the 5->2 combo and hide behind clones to prevent the shadow shots and other head shots.

Dagins.5163:

Please tell me how you can see 1/4 second cast time coming.
1/4 second cast times are here only to prevent combos. They aren’t meant to be ,,seen", unless you are a robot. You can still, however, predict them, but you can predict even instant casts.

Tell that to any s/f elementalist who uses LF while casting phoenix. 1/4s is an eternity.

Cynz.9437:

Would you team up with new player? I hardly doubt it.

I do it all the time, and I think a lot of players do as well. I prefer playing with people who I know are learning, but with whom I have fun than “veteran” players who trash talk, afk and what not in soloq. Even if it’s just duoq or trioq.

apharma.3741:

Go assassins if you have the option of any stat combo and can choose it.

I will however say, having crafted a full set of light armour with strength runes, that it is not worth it and sticking to exotic is a better idea.

I say assassins because Mesmer is just about only really needed for reflects and in order to maximise that on the harder bosses etc you want over 100% crit chance, hence assassins.

This guys makes good points. However, if you want the maximal damage for open world PvE, WvW and still perform very well in dungeons, choose berserker. It is also more versatile, since it is an excellent choice for elementalist and necromancer as well, should you create a character with one of these two professions. I would say these are the two best options.

Lordrosicky.5813:

TexZero.7910:

Socialize and form a team.

You PvP with anywhere from 4-9 other strangers each game. You’re playing an MMO and trying to remain relevant and competitive…Solo’ing is not how to accomplish either of those goals.

Or just continue to beat the dead horse, either way. Doesn’t bother me, solo, duo, pre-made who cares. Man up take the challenge. It’s PvP not PvForum.

lol, the only way to make a team in this game is to get 5 players who are willing to base considerable parts of their lives around guild wars 2.

Or just ask people from your friend list to play with you when you are connected.

Not saying that you shouldn’t play in soloq. Soloq is fun. But if we want to build a competitive scene, teaming up should be incentivized, not frowned upon. Premades don’t play to “farm” pugs: they team up because soloq is too casual to keep a good player occupied for long.

snow.8097:

premades should go to ranked
the most solo q player go to unranked and think its quite honorless to play as organized teams against PUGs
thats just farming
the power of direct communication is strong
and try to tell ur PUG team while fighting that player X goes to place Y in a time, which is enough to react

You never ever win against premades? I would say I win at least 50% of the games where I face full guild premades, because their individual mechanical skill are much lower than mine usually. If you are one of the very best players in the game, your MMR is probably too high for you to beat a premade in a PUG, but I don’t think you are (but I don’t know every top player, pardon me if it’s the case).

I’m going to agree with you. It would be nice to be able to play in ranked ONLY in a full premade, and let the 1-3 man parties play in a more casual fashion in unranked.

glock.6590:

Typical weak/soft player that’s gets offended by few words behind a computer screen. I wonder what those people do if it happens in real life, do you call the cops and stay at your home to prevent any abuse?

The thing is, this almost NEVER happens IRL. I have never been insulted in real life, playing any sport or game (with the notable exception of Monopoly and a swiss card game, but friends and family are doing the abuse in that case). People online just tend to get very salty, for no apparent reason. I think OP is a bit overreacting, but he has a point: why are people flaming other players in a game? That makes no sense to me.

kdaddy.5431:

I would like to suggest that unranked be for stronghold, courtyard, orb and skyhammer and ranked gets the other maps.

It might have the exact opposite effect than what you’re trying to achieve. In ranked, where there is only four maps, you almost only play Foefire and Niflhel. At least when you play unranked, these maps are sometimes not in the three proposed maps, and I play a lot more on Khylo, on Temple or on Spirit Watch, three conquest maps that I like.

If we did as you suggest, the favorite map (probably Champion’s Dusk) would be picked all the time. That’s fun only for a while.

amaranthined.5167:

but it’s hell of a lot more difficult to carry bad/new pugs.

You think? I find it harder to carry inappropriate builds (like shatter mesmer or celestial engineer), but a lot easier to carry bad players. All they have to do is to pack and spam skills. If you play a tanky CC spec, you can really carry hard, while in conquest, if one player can’t rotate, you are pretty much in a 4v5 situation.

Sizzle Hint.1820:

then a net decided it would be better to take it out again because teams are having too long queue times…

Come on now. I can understand a little bit of nostalgia. But this is just plain wrong: solo queue times could be over 10-15 minutes, and I was under rank 80 back then! Most solo players were playing in teamq, because there were fewer 4v5s, shorter queue times, better rotations. There were threads about the joke soloq was.

You can be in favor of soloq because the idea appeals to you. You don’t need to reinvent the history of this game to make a point. Or do you?

bhagwad.4281:

TexZero.7910:

Socialize and form a team.

You PvP with anywhere from 4-9 other strangers each game. You’re playing an MMO and trying to remain relevant and competitive…Solo’ing is not how to accomplish either of those goals.

Or just continue to beat the dead horse, either way. Doesn’t bother me, solo, duo, pre-made who cares. Man up take the challenge. It’s PvP not PvForum.

Just because it’s an MMO does not mean a pre-made team is better. Where’s the logic in that?

Well, to be fair, I seriously doubt you would win the WTS with a pug. Which does mean that playing as a premade is a more optimal way of playing conquest. The coordination you have is better, and the strategic plays you can pull off are superior. I mostly duoq, because it’s fun, but when I do play in a full premade, it’s like a different game. I wouldn’t say “superior”, but less casual.

Because it is one of the best weapon in the entire game.

It particularly shines in team fights. What you usually want to do is NOT to jump with your dagger in the middle of the cleave when the team fight starts, but be on your SB while auto-attacking and cluster-bombing for decent damage, spamming AoE weakness with your skill 4 (via the DA minor trait or by blasting the field), until a target is low enough and tries to kite. Then switch to your dagger and finish.

It is also an amazing cleave weapon. Generally, as a thief, when an opponent goes down, your role is to cleave, but without taking too many risks, so if it is a big team fight, you are probably better off with your SB.

BrickFurious.7169:

For once I actually agree with everyone defending this. Do you think Alexander the Great would have complained about pin sniping? Seriously, this is war, war is dirty, and it’s definitely not cheating, so deal with it.

“Kitten pirateship pin-sniping scrub blob.”
– Alexander the Great, 330 BC

nearlight.3064:

I hope that clarified your discussion of new condition traits and imporvements, because Anet is trying, but it won’t be enough unless they manage the sustain based specs in a way to allow conditions and sustain based classes to coexist in a balanced way.

You did, thank you! I wasn’t really discussing the viability of condi mesmer (I’m not much of a condi person anyway). Someone asked if new condition proc traits were added, and I thought about this one.

On condi mesmer, I think MtD will see it’s use, especially in WvW and Stronghold. In conquest however, I think a shatter-lockdown mix will be preferred. It is too early to tell.

Relentliss.2170:

I can’t stress how much these three things hurt PvP

Limited builds
Perma stealth
Too much CC
Visual pollution

There are three kind of people on the pvp sub forum:

Those who can count
Those who can’t

Azure The Heartless.3261:

I have now seen this same statement said about every class in the game but necros.

Interesting.

Beginning to think I shouldn’t put too much stock in what people consider “effort” anymore.

Ok, allow me then: power necro are incredibly easy to play. Just spam dagger 1, DS 1, lich 1, and wait till your spinal shivers/air/fire random proc kills your opponent for you.

I think we have every profession now.

Alexander.9810:

Yes I’ll admit that FFXIV is currently a PvE only deal. But as incredible as FFXIV ARR has been in 2 years, it was just exposition. This is the “WoW Killer” and PvP will be objectively superior to GW2’s by the end of the year.

I hope your wish will come true. The thing is (and being a very recent forum user, it is possible that you would not know), these last years have been filled with promising new games that were going to supplant GW2’s pvp: ESO, ArchAge, etc. In the end, they fell short, and GW2 is still regarded as a standard of the genre.

It could happen, but I have started to question these messianic thoughts.

The “tanky condi builds” made up 2 or fewer of 5 slots on a team, even at their most popular point. Inclusion in a competitive scene does not make it a meta. Condi builds were included for a while, but they never defined the meta.

I can clearly remember a long lasting meta called “spirit ranger meta”, and another called “Dhuumfire meta”. I guess I dreamt it.

Care to list the ones that are coming that aren’t already here? Outside of the reworks coming for Engineer and Necro traits/skills (where we don’t know what they will bring), I really am not seeing it.

I think in the mesmer trait rework, there are some new condi-related traits. The Illusions line was especially reworked to be condition heavy, with one trait giving (I think) torment procs on confusion application. I’m not sure though, I only play power.

The Reaper also has a lot of condition-based traits (chill mainly). Did I answer your question?

Larynx.2453:

Yeah… you’re literally just spamming your buttons when they’re off CD. Not exactly play anyone should idolize. Whirlwind Attack only ticking once, using Earthshaker into his shelter and aegis and actually just plain missing it once (unless you swapped to hammer to use earthshaker as a gap closer… in which case lol), using rush at point blank a second after the guardian used his invuln, dodging nothing randomly…

That’s just mean. Ok, the guy is maybe not the best player in the game, but he wanted to suggest a build to the OP. The build works decently well (I sometimes use it in WvW), and that’s all that matters. What was the point of your comment, aside from boosting your fragile ego?

Liewec.2896:

(knowing that one idiot will always pick it, and it will always get picked by the not-so-random wheel.)

Drop the tinfoil hat mate. I don’t like Skyhammer, and I never vote for it, but with this weighted dice roll, the map gets played at the exact measure of its popularity. Just because you and I don’t like it doesn’t mean other players who do have no say in the matter, and their opinion is just as valid as ours. You’re being a bit entitled.

Furthermore, more maps also mean that we can actually play on some cools maps (Khylo, Temple, even Spirit Watch for those who like it), instead of ALWAYS getting Foefire and Niflhel (which are fun, but only for a time).

This so-called “bleeding” is a pure speculation, at least in my pvp experience. ToL3 had more viewers than the previous editions, the Go4GW2 cups are getting more popular each week, and overall I think a lot of players came back to pvp when HoT was announced. I don’t know about PvE, but the Witcher and exam sessions for the youngest audience might have driven people out of the game for a while. It doesn’t matter.

That being said, I understand that Anet is focussing on the expansion, but seriously, why can’t we have a WvW season? I can’t think of anything as inexpensive as that.

You can be successful on some melee warrior builds using GS or sword (for the gap closers) in low-mid tier soloq (and even higher, with some skill). The “meta” game is only meta in team play in ranked (although it performs really well in soloq as well). The problem is caused partly by your build (try choovanski’s), but also by the fact you haven’t played in a long time. People know what works: insta-cast skills, teleports, and burst damage over sustained. Apart from radom procs (looking at you power necros), that’s a play style you will find enjoyable once you get used to it. Warrior is relatively easy to play profession, so I have no doubt you will be winning your games in no time.

Poliator.7021:

IOn a side note, people don’t like “Courtyard”, the map, because it has a lot of things to LoS and well, people don’t like it (+everyone seems to be obsessed with 3v3/2v2 arenas).

I was under the impression that people didn’t like Courtyard because it is too reliant on team composition and has too much of a snowball potential. Never heard anyone complain about LoS. In fact, I would bet that most players don’t like to just press skills in front of each other. Even Conquest looks like a jumping puzzle sometimes.

Crimson Clouds.4853:

EDIT: Realised I joined the party a little late and the points I’ve written have already been made. Oh well.

That’s alright, you said it better.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I’m sure they will, but everyone who wants them would have already bought them if they were always on the store, yeah?

They have two different strategies. Some items can be purchased at all times, but some popular skins (Like Roxx’s quiver and Belinda’s GS) induce a huge raise in the gold-to-gem rate, leading people to buy the gems with real money instead. Both strategies have advantages, and I suppose they have an employee calculating the strategy to use for which item.

lighter.2708:

technically you can, big o bomb

And the award for the most tryhard swiftness application in the game goes to lighter.2708! Congratulations!

Team fights and rotations by Backpack.

Cynz.9437:

and the fact that game tries to force you to lose if you go above 50% win rate

Dude… You ARE forced to lose if you go above 50% win rate in ANY game, unless you are in the best team in your region.

The reason is simple: Glicko and Elo try to predict the outcome a a game and modify your rank in consequence. So if you keep winning, you keep climbing on the rank ladder, and eventually face players that are better or equal to you. Why would you want to have a win rate higher than 50%? The more games you play, the closer you will get to a 50% ratio, it’s normal. In the mean time, you can get better, so your win ratio can be a bit higher than that, but I what kind of system can you expect a 75% win ratio? The mean ratio is necessarily 50%, since in every match, 5 players lose and 5 win.

Random.4691:

I mean seriously if we are just out to make everything easy mode for everyone so we are all on the same playing field

I don’t how you got that having your buffs removed was “easy mode”. It just balances the game mode a bit more. Don’t you prefer winning a fight being SURE that you won because of your superior skill and not because you farmed five apathetic NPCs five minutes before? Well I do, I and I will be relieved when these buffs are gone. Ever since I got them, they have been a nuisance more than anything.

basically why make us work for anything ?

Work to get better and to win fights relying on your personal skill.

alchemyst.2165:

I feel like they should make sleight of hand semi-baseline. Something like this:

Baseline: Steal steals a boon from a foe.

Traited: Steal an extra boon and grant vigor to allies.

It would also be cool if steal had condi transfer, but that might be a bit too strong, and increase over-reliance on steal.

That’s Bountiful Theft. And why should it? Traits are a way to specialize in some aspects of your profession, so it seems normal that you have to take traits to get a better steal.

Spirigo.2897:

TIL GW2 uses Glicko-2.

Yup. But the LB used to be based on your Glicko 2 MMR alone, and people were complaining about it being “broken” because people with only a small number of games played had a good position on the LB. Had them read the algorithm, they would have understand.

Cynz.9437:

Players who are happy with the game, don’t care or don’t have enough knowledge(arguable) don’t post on forums that is why it seems like all posts on forums are QQ and blaming Anet…

While I agree with this diagnosis, I couldn’t help but smile at the “players who don’t have enough knowledge don’t post on forums” part. As if! I think one of the reason we have these upsetting LB is because the forum illiterates were incapable of understanding how Glicko 2 worked.

uhohhotdog.3598:

Ive seen a lot of 3 guardian teams as well.

True. In my MMR zone at least, I see more guardians than mesmers. And even more than rangers lately. Only necros are more frequent I’d say.

Tarkan.5609:

Sorel.4870:

It would make anything with Mug and a dagger off-hand unplayable, because of the reveal caused by mug. So you couldn’t do a steal->CnD combo.

i actually hope anet is gonna fix the combination of hidden thief ( thats the stealth-steal-trait right? never used it so i dont have a clue) and mug – 60606 thieves could save a lot of initiative while also being able to deal quite some dmg with good/cheesy sustain

I agree. I was hoping they would fix the SA cheesiness, but it’s not happening I’m afraid. Oh well…

Great thread Chaos.

IP baseline will probably open a bit more build diversity, but I agree that shatter is the way to go for now.

choovanski.5462:

Most people I meet in pvp are weak players anyhow.

How is that possible? Are you the best player in your time zone? Do you always queue with four new players in your party? It seems like you should sometimes be matched against better players. Are you sure you don’t have a “ranked” type ego?