Guild Wars 2

We shatter lovers have exactly the same problem.

We could spec into Dom/Duel/Illu, but lose the F5, alacrity, and 25% speed boost
Or drop Domination and the over-the-top MW damage and boon stripping
Or drop DE, and hope the Chrono traits are enough to compensate
Or drop illu, the recharge on shatters and Master of Fragmentation

And I love it. For the first time since launch, we will have (for a time) different variations of the same play styles.

nightblood.7910:

Honestly, I think they need to open the targeted based ones (ie Shadow Shot) up to where ever the target is as long as its in range. No need for a valid path.

Im tired of rangers on cliffs I cant port up to.

Yeah right. Because when a mesmer takes the time to do a bloody jumping puzzle in pvp so that the thief leaves him the kitten alone, the thief should be able to catch up by the press of one key! How dare that pesky purple man outplay me!

That’s a terrible idea. The new changes are amazing, especially for long CD like Shadowstep and Blink. In my opinion, the only teleports without valid path should be teleports for which you placed the exit place yourself. Portal and Spectral Walk currently work like this. I wish Shadow Trap was fixed to work in a similar fashion: it is not reliable in its current state, even though I love using it in pvp.

I don’t know. I really rarely die because of that trait, and it’s just SOOOO good with vamp runes. I’m invulnerable AND stealthed when I get bursted.

My bet is on Survival skills. But just to be safe, I’ll say that Physical skills and Stances are possible.

Neither! Strength is a bad idea because you can’t reliably apply might to yourself (aside from Thrill of the crime) and is expensive as hell. I played a bit with runes of the Ogre before the Ferocity nerf, and I found the rock dog super annoying and not very stealthy. Now that Ferocity was nerfed, the stats are not that great either. Pack runes are fantastic for the mobility they offer, and the fury uptime is OP. That’s my personal choice. Vampirism runes are excellent in a pvp environment because of their synergy with Withdraw and Last Refuge, and are really cheap. And you’ll never lose to mesmer again (as if it was the case with other runes). I haven’t tested them in WvW though. Runes of the eagle are a bit more old school, and I don’t like the stats on them, but they work decently.

Misterdeeply.8764:

Please be a Reaper!

I somehow doubt they will go with that. It is already the title you get for reaching rank 70 in pvp. A reaper with the “Reaper” title would look incredibly silly.

Wiella.8567:

You always get skins of what it took to craft item you bind to your account.
I got Sunrise skin that way when equipped Eternity.
Plus you will get precursor skins as well.

To be a little more precise: throwing any item in the Mystic Forge, whether you are crafting a Legendary or just throwing random stuff for a precursor or for fun, will unlock its appearance. So you got Sunrise and Twilight skins in your wardrobe when you crafted Eternity, BEFORE equipping it. If you want both Twilight and Sunrise skins, but are not interested in Eternity, you can do like the original poster, craft Eternity and sell it. So basically you have payed in total a bit less than it would cost to craft Sunrise only, which is nice.

Lord Kuru.3685:

65 skill challenges. Even if you take 1 minute per skill challenge, that’d take more than an hour. If you are creating a new toon for WvW (or your current toon is all WvW and no map completion), you’d have to open the map as you won’t be able to just WP near the skill challenges. Definitely a grind.

As a solo roamer, this would still take a lot less time than the time I would need to earn the necessary gold to unlock every trait on my recent alts.

In the current system, even the alts I play a lot only have half of their traits and skills unlocked. Only using the skill points you get for getting to 80 and the hero challenges available in WvW, you’ll be able to unlock most of them now. On a ranger for example, you never need to unlock shouts. On thief, I never use tricks and traps in WvW (apart from the situational Scorpion Wire). There’s an entire trait line on my mesmer I never use: I will not need to step into PvE with this character. I have the feeling you’re just ranting for the sake of ranting at this point.

I’ve had an incredible luck with the MM lately, and most of my games are challenging.

heartless: I think one of the problem you might be experiencing is that there are not many totally new players in pvp. I started playing in pvp in april 2014 when it was completely revamped, and a lot of players joined with me, which means I had fun with other terrible players.

There has been an influx of new players since the HoT announcement I believe, but it doesn’t compare to april 2014 or the launch of the game. So there is simply not many people as bad as you.

Fortunately however, you’ll find as you get better that pvp is full of terrible players. So if you practice a bit you’ll find better games in no time (in soloq, some will still be frustrating, because soloq rotations are terrible, but that’s a different issue). Here is some advice:

- Make friends in the game. It’s easy because most people are nice when you get to know them.
- Duel with your friends to learn about your build.
- Play in Practice until you get bored (around 1-2 games :P), to learn how to act in outnumbered situations.
- Watch this amazing video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvPb2jY19oU&spfreload=10
- Watch the tears of your enemies trickle on their cheeks.

I can try to answer one of your question. Yes, the pvp community is pretty small, which is the main reason why the match-making algorithm is not working that well.

In december, during the first test season, I started around 94% on the LB, and climbed up to the top 1000. During this progression, I’ve been at 95%, but never at 96%. We therefore deduce that the top 4% of the LB represented 1000 players. So the total number of players who participated to the first test season in December is around 25’000.

It is quite small considering the broad number of parameters the MM system considers. So in the current state, it’s not unusual to get either profession stacking, unbalance, or premade stacking. However, I have the (maybe misguided) feeling that we’ve seen an significant number of new players getting into pvp since the HoT announcement. It’s annoying when they are on your team, but if I’m right this gives hope for the future.

In the mean time, let’s try our best to motivate PvE or WvW players to play with us. Which means first of all keeping your cool when you get inexperienced players on your team. That and hope that Anet shares our goal.

Bubi.7942:

Remember that time when “Antitoxin Spray” healing skill was announced and everyone went apekitten because it was gonne be too OP?

Good times.

Banshee. Please be Banshee.

RIOT was infected by the chronomancer hype!

1) Immobilize bug
2) Pathing issues
3) Random pet knock-backs
4) Passive endure pain and vamp runes
5) Signet of bloody Stone
6) People who want to kill bosses in the beginning on Niflhel.

Aktium.9506:

Cogbyrn.7283:

If you’re pressing a half-dozen buttons per second, you’re at 360 APM, which is well above a professional RTS player who is spamming actions that don’t matter. I’m assuming you mean “half a dozen buttons” (the end), but I was just amused by the irony of the wording.

I do a lot more button presses than 6 per sec tbh. I always spam whatever skill I want to use at max speed and a second is pretty long. Add movement keys and right mouse button to rotate camera to that and it’s not exactly amazing.

Some builds actually require to press 6 keys in a second. It’s actually not that hard to perform (at least on a golem) with a bit of practice. Let’s take a standard sf ele phoenix opening. Basically, you want to execute the whole combo in less than a second. The combo goes:
Pheonix -> Lighting Flash -> Air attunement -> Arcane Wave -> Air 2 -> Air 3 = 6 key presses in under a second, two of them being ground targeted to two different locations.

However, that’s really an extreme example. I played most meta builds in GW2, and that’s the only example I can think of.

edit: I can’t resist the envy of sharing this amazing video demonstrating what I just stated. Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4xpjcPSDWQ&spfreload=10

Cynz.9437:

rampage is different story, as said before, too much moblity for such high dmg and literary no way to control war in rampage atm

You have to consider that warriors have to give up one of the best team fight abilities in the game (battle standard) in order to take rampage. Frankly, rampage seems a bit underwhelming in comparison.

If you had one of the following:

- one mesmer
- one thief

on your team, then lich and rampage are non issues. If not, get one.

I sympathise with the issues you’re raising. However, condi clone death was a bad design, and there are plenty of builds with fewer key presses in this game you can still have fun with.

A few examples: MM necro, any warrior build really, most ranger builds, venom share thief, support mantra mesmer, staff guardian, etc.

GW2 is an action-strategy game. So if you have bad reflexes, because of age or disability, you’re at a disadvantage. My advice would be to focus more on the strategic aspect, which is more important in conquest than mechanical skill.

I thought I was decent at that game, and then I watched this video. I now feel like the filthiest of peasant before the magnificent Lord Helseth.

Raelag Arkhen.6347:

Will we get a spring tournament this year?

It’ beginning to be late for that. I really hope there will, but my faith is shaking.

All this time, I thought I was having fun. I guess not, if Reanne says so. Also, it was one of the big selling arguments of the game back in 2012. I love doing these when leveling up, or doing map exploration.

Chest farming has no DR. I’m pretty sure of it. The DR on mobs kicks in super fast (after just one of two resets on the same ennemies), but I haven’t experience any DR of chest farming. It’s like pvp chests: it’s not affected by these considerations: it’s a container.

Idea Of Evil.1845:

Hello guys i play gw2 for like 5 months and i only play pvp as thief and mesmer and i can say 1 thing the Medi dps guards are cancer if the guardian knows what to do vs a class they can easily kill everything and i mean everything from condition builds to zerker
when they will get nerfed kitten

Sorry, dear newcomer, but meditation guardians happen to be extremely strong against both power thief and power mesmer. It’s not a balance issue: they are super easy to kill with, say, an engineer. Yes, it’s a braindead build, so it’s extremely frustrating to lose against it. But you should just avoid them.

Quadox.7834:

“bow attacks seem like they won’t be able to deliver much pressure offensively”
Seems surprisingly unconnected to chronomancer if you ask me.

He has seen the future! Because he’s a chronomancer. I’m sorry, my joke was too bad to be understood.

Quadox.7834:

Necros are on eof the hardest classes to play well at the moment. Not in 1v1s, but in teamfights where positioning is key.

I agree, it’s hard to really master a necromancer in pvp. However, they still have slow, easy to land attacks, and long cast times. Positioning is hard and requires skill, but not necessarily fast reflexes.

Quadox.7834:

I would love to know how you came to that conclusion.

Nevermind, i actually don’t really wanna know at all, sorry.

(Basically wait at least for the stream to judge please).

He’s playing a chronomancer, that’s how.

Ithilwen.1529:

WAKE UP! NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO PLAY A HYPER REFLEX ELITIST BUILD. SORRY< BUT I"D LIKE SOME MORE “PASSIVE” PLAY OPTIONS..

I’M WELL NORTH OF 40 AND I DON’T HAVE A KID’S REACTION TIME.

Don’t worry. Rangers, necromancers, warriors and guardians will most likely remain slow, easy professions, no matter their specialization. The only build you’ll miss is clone-death mesmer.

God, now I need siege towers. Thanks for nothing TyPin.

Ooooooooh yes please! Siege tower battles would be so epic!!!! But I think the siege tower should require 10 (or 5 people) just to move it. And maybe trigger some kind of indicator for the enemy world, because if they don’t deal damage to walls, they could be used for sneaky attacks on undefended towers.

Also, the catapult should only be able to only fire asuras! Seriously though, this one would be too powerful, because of mesmers.

I love the idea of the Iron Mole. Maybe it could only be build in the dredge tunnels in EB, if you control them?

Thank you TyPin for these creative ideas.

LionZero.3479:

Is Anet going overboard a bit with all the new hot stuff when it comes to ranged projectiles absording/blocking/reflecting?

I know many have cried about pew pew, but at this rate only gs mes is left to actually damage people from range in HoT ^^

You might think that. But on my mesmer for example, I’m forced to use the “Reflexion on Distorsion” trait in almost every pvp game I play, because of the sick amount of LB rangers, power necros, rifle engineers (though you don’t see as many of them now that they are forced to play a more skillful build), and LB warriors. Some of the most popular soloq builds are heavily based on projectiles, so a few more defenses against them couldn’t hurt.

edit: since we are on the WvW forum: it’s even worse! You don’t see as many lich necros, but most roamers are:
- LB rangers
- Pistol thieves
- Staff mesmers (ok, reflexion is not that useful against them, but still they shoot projectiles)
- Rifle warriors

I don’t mind. Warriors and thieves that aren’t good enough to play pvp can get a second life here, and that’s all we can hope for them.

[quote=5042185;PowerBottom.5796:]

It’s the other way around Quadox: it’s BECAUSE you can dodge that pvp players use these instacast or random skills. Most skills in the game can be dodged, but you choose not to use them in pvp. Why do you think that Churning Earth or Dragon Tooth are almost never used on elementalist?

That being said, random procs are more annoying than instacast skills, which can still be predicted, because players are easy to read. I think Ferocity should be buffed (as it stands, power is so much better than precision and ferocity it’s ridiculous), and air and fire sigils nerfed. I don’t ming geomancy sigil (it still requires positioning), but the poison duration on the doom sigil is really over the top. I think I play it on every build on which I can not consistently apply poison. It’s not healthy.

SlimChance.6593:

Lets hope that ANet takes the same stance to other professions and remove similar “passive gameplay” mechanics.

I doubt it. Mesmer is intended to be a profession played by skilled players. You have to let rangers, warriors and guardians be easy, otherwise what would beginners play?

rchu.8945:

Yea, I have my doubts, a “nobody important” dev is working on Mesmer HOT specialization, nice…

I don’t know about that. In addition to the fact that you’re being rude to that guy you don’t know (you said it yourself), I think his presentation of the chronomancer was awesome. I love how the mesmer is slowly getting back to the interrupt/deceptive role he had in GW1, and if this dev is the one we have to thank, well I don’t care if he’s a “nobody”. I’ll take the chronomancer over the draconner anytime.

Sebrent.3625:

Why does my Mesmer’s Mind Wrack do less damage then my Ranger’s Rapid Fire but have a longer cooldown and require illusions?

Because it’s instant, and you can cast it while stunned, while dodging, or while casting something else (Blurred Frenzy or Mind Stab, in the two most common shatter combos). I love the shatter play style, because it’s so violent: you don’t have to immob or stun your opponents to kill them with MW. Unlike RF where the second part of the skill is more often than not reflected or evaded. It’s still a strong skill, but so is MW.

tobascodagama.2961:

Wouldn’t surprise me. But what this does indicate is that literally everything is… on the table… for the Elite Spec utility skills. So, who knows, maybe Warriors get Glamours and Elementalists get Gadgets and…

I hope, I really hope, that the warrior specialization ressembles the “commando” from an April’s fool joke Anet made a while ago. Think about it: they get the pistol, and KITTENING GADGETS! A lot of warriors players would be disappointed, but I personally could delete all my other characters if they do that.

Niminion.1982:

Would it be too much to ask for clones and phantasms to leap, or at the very least run really fast to your target when you use a shatter skill. They still need to do their death animation when they finally get in range.

On the one hand, yes, it’s very annoying when fighting a SD thief for example, because even if your clones are very close to you and you MW when the thief is completely surrounded, he can still port and mitigate the entire burst except for IP and an eventual dodge-shatter.

On the other hand, that’s part of the fun. One way to recognize a truly good mesmer is to watch how he disposes his clones to produce the effect he wants. This slow moving illusions are also really cool for a triple-daze Diversion shatter. I think the new confounding suggestion will REALLY help landing your shatters, if you play power shatter that is.

tetrodoxin.2134:

Seeing that Mesmers get wells and Guardians are getting traps… what if Druids will get Mantras?

I hope they do. Or maybe tempest elementalists could get them. Either way, they could introduce a cool mantra rune. I would like to see something like “Gain 25% movement speed if you have an active mantra on yourself”. I could really help in WvW.

Sagat.3285:

Check our section and read the complaints instead of seeing them I don’t feel like rewriting 2.5 years of complaints. Don’t bring 1v1 in a team balanced game that was the first error of your response, you can shutdown power necro easy at start and guarantee a win. This is not just about meta or PvP. On topic everyone has their limit of peaceful behavior the same for devs for lacking.

I read that. Now I’m on my way to create my 5th necromancer. I hope it doesn’t end in the trash can with the other 4 but I can’t help it: I hate slow professions.

If necromancers get gadgets, I’m SOOOOO creating a necro.

edit: neverming, the hype is too strong. Creating one right now.

I hope they do something of that sort, or replace one of these Master traits with iInvigoration. It’s a trait line dedicated to shatters, and there are no shattering options in that Master slot.

ronpierce.2760:

What you described as “great at 1v1” is when they already snowballed enough life force. Starting at 0% life force, most classes can take advantage of you fast enough before you’re a problem, yet our defense actually scales TOO good 1v1, and terrible for team play (on top of being hard to support with healing, mind you).

Don’t you get some life force after respawn with the new trait system? I agree with you that not being able to heal a necro in DS is terrible, but it’s still a design choice that Anet made. I think that’s a bad one, but I don’t feel like they OWE me to fix it. I think Diversion not being an AoE is a terrible design choice (it looks and feels like an AoE), but I got over it.

Rod.3087:

Zietlogik.6208:

It is a playstyle thing, Elementalist and Thief are probably the biggest offenders in the “super-annoying” category in WvW, but Elementalist is much more mechanical in its playstyle.

What do you mean by mechanical? and how is thief not mechanical per say? And thank you for all your insight =)

He means “pressing more buttons”. Thief in WvW requires a relatively low skill to obtain good results, so you should try that if you’re beginning. In pvp, it’s the other way around: thieves are a bit more difficult to play, except for some rare scepter full glass specs.

Rod.3087:

Since you mention that: Another thing that is HUGE for me is being able to 1v1. As of now, I can literally 1v1 any class/spec/build with my Rogue, and I want to be able to do the same with the profession I play in GW2. Is 1v1 overpowered by anyone specific profession?

It’s fairly balanced, and it will depend on your skill mostly. Some builds are very strong in 1v1, but are absolutely boring (PU mesmer, dagger-dagger elementalist, even meditation guardian). As long as you don’t play a really “paper-rock-scissor” build (like most of necro and engineer builds), you can do fine in 1v1.

Ryan.9387:

But what about theif, mesmer, sf ele, power necro, dps guard?

The RNG nature of fire/air is only a problem for necro and guardian really. For thief, mesmer and sf ele, people are complaining about the massive bursts. Which you can dodge. Which you can blind. Which you can block. The sigils just add a bit of damage to said burst, but there is still a lot of counter play. Those three builds are considered the harder to master in pvp because you sacrifie a lot of survivability to get an insane burst.

I think mesmer AA on Gs should be buffed to deal comparable damage to the other 1200-range AA in the game, and to have something to deal with thieves. I think scepter elementalist in general needs a buff. Without this is done, these burst builds are still out of the meta, despite their sigils being supposedly OP. Learn to dodge.

Oh, and before you say it, no, power necro is not hard. There’s a different between being hard and straight up bad.

ronpierce.2760:

Then you know, joking about it. “We deleted Necromancers”. I could chuckle at that, but the sad truth behind it is they have been neglectful toward a portion of their player-base, and that’s not really something to be proud of as a company.

That maybe a dumb question, but why do necromancers whine all the time about their profession being broken? I see a lot of them in ranked and unranked games, and terrormancer is one of the best 1v1 build in the game. Arguably, power necro is a pretty stupid build, but you’re not forced to play it. Sure, it’s not as meta as a warrior, but you don’t see as many complains coming from rangers and mesmers, despite them being out of the meta as well.

DaShi.1368:

Randomness is supposed to be fair. However, there is reason to suspect that things might not be truly random.

Yeah? What reason? You didn’t get one? That’s not a compelling argument.

I love how we have the same threads about the MF or anything random in this game. It’s RANDOM! There’s no scheme, no favored accounts, just RNG. Now you tell me: if you were to chose a small number of active players to get access to a beta, how would you proceed? You could give a way to get it for sure, but then you would have to get it at said hour to prevent too many players from getting it. A RNG drop is a way to be sure that the beta testers are active players, that’s all. You’re not entitled to a beta access. You were unlucky, shake it off.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

….yeah i guess the only point of making “outfits” is to prevent clipping/gap issues.

Seems like a lot of wasted potential on thins that could have been really cool but had corners cut.

Not only. Yes, there’s this aspect, but there’s also other advantages to outfits:

- They are not tied to an armor type. That allows guilds groups to look fancy together in their classy outfits.

- They don’t cost any transmutation charges. That could be nice if, like me, you like to change your characters’ appearance all the time. I play mostly pvp, and STILL I lack transmutation charges.

That being said, I prefer armors, but I’d rather have them added in-game.