Guild Wars 2

Turamarth.3248:

From the recent AMA:
“•For now we plan to rotate the borderlands once each quarter.”
Source

Thank you very much! I wish they would have a way to do these AMA sessions in the official forums.

Josh XT.6053:

I think that the problem with playing 2 alpine 1 desert is that people who don’t actually want to play desert are still going to be stuck with it since it’ll have to lowest queues or none at all.

With the server linking, the higher tier servers (t1 and t2) experience a lot of high queues in prime time due to there not being enough maps but plenty of players. Throwing in a few more maps for people might solve that issue.

I feel like the queues we are experiencing now are merely temporary. The old BLs are back, the server alliances are still new, and, most importantly, there is nothing to do in spvp at the moment, and it drives people to WvW. I could be wrong, but the number of maps we have now might turn out to be enough in the long run.

Josh XT.6053:

Have 3 maps be alpine, 3 desert, 1 EBG. Tada – problem solved, people get both maps, we have less fighting to get in to maps due to queues, all is well.

This is a solution I would very much like. However, I doubt we have the population to do that (unless we merge more servers, at the detriment of organisation). I still dream of a solution including EBG and three different BLs though.

Maybe, instead of having a BL rotation, we could play with 2 alpine and 1 desert BL each week, randomly attributed? Only for as long as the beta lasts. Then, if it is noted that having the desert home BL gives a significant advantage (respectively disadvantage), it would be attributed each week to the highest (respectively lowest) MMR server alliance.

Josh XT.6053:

Alpine BL – Forever.
Deserted BL – Never.

Please and thank you, Anet.

Thank you for voicing your opinion. Now, I’ve been playing for a while, and if I remember correctly, people were asking for new maps before HoT, and now that we got one, I don’t think it’s such a good idea to get rid of it completely. A rotation seems to be a fair trade between conservatives like yourself and people wanting more diversity.

It’s nice to have the Alpine BL back, and it gives time to the development team to come up with additional tuning of the Desert BLs, but can we know when they are supposed to come back? I know I should trust Anet, but since Courtyard never reappeared in pvp, I want to make sure that these new maps are not just forgotten on a server somewhere. Overall, I think having a clear rotation schedule between the BLs would be nice.

I’ve been running hydro and leeching for ever, but I recently swapped leeching for agility, and it makes a world of difference! With the new Adrenal Health it’s vital to hit the bursts reliably, and the quickness Arcing Slice is just too good. You can also have the first hits of your 100b coming out faster. It’s so fluid, that even if leeching gets fixed I probably won’t go back.

Hello folks,

I’m a pretty bad necromancer, and I’m sometimes playing this build in pvp for fun:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBHhZ6kZTocTsbTwzGgeTsgLYQXtAQLIuK2FDjUph2wzC-TZBFABkittenAY4IAAwDA4/yAFt/AA

I run axe, because Reaper Shroud is melee, and I feel like I would be kited to much if I ran dagger or GS. However, every power reaper I see, especially in WvW, seems to be running either dagger or GS.

Is there something really bad about axe that I don’t know of? I mean, the auto does decent damage and is fast enough to proc the on crit sigils often enough, the #2 gives you a lot of lf if you time it right, and the #3, while having a cast time that is unnecessarily long, is sometimes very useful because of the boon corrupt. What am I missing?

Hell no. Enough with these changes! At this point Anet just needs to keep a system and improve on it, instead of changing every year.

lighter.2708:

the problem with gs is that it has no reliable to land damage compare to sword rev…if you change gs 3 to work like rev sword 3 we might see something, but now..nothing seriously but soloq fun play..

Yeah right… Rev sword 3 is a boooooring skill: you let the game play for you. No thanks.

Have you tried using HS with quickness on a thief? I wonder if it reduces the range. Because if it does, Anet probably has a problem with the way movement skills interract with quickness. I would like to see GS3 and 5 to interract with quickness again, but going the full distance.

I’d never thought I’d say that one day, but I’ve missed you. You are probably the last player using grenades in this game though.

Dirame.8521:

And in reply to Helseth….. what the heck are you going to stream instead that gets you the same amount of views and growth? Unless you’re thinking of getting good at Overwatch, I’m not sure you can go anywhere else. But maybe I’m just underestimating you.

He’s trying to get good at Overwatch. But that probably won’t happen because he has a life.

Kicker.8203:

https://www.twitch.tv/thelordhelseth/v/62626340

In short he can’t grow his channel in GW2 because:

• People have no incentive to watch streams. Everyone can get to legendary(but why would they even want to? it holds no prestige) without being good at the game so they don’t have to learn from streams.
• There is no soloque.

That’s not exactly what he said. I don’t even know where you get the “no soloq” part. To be a little more precise, he gives the following explanations for his lack of viewership:

The league system does not provide balanced matches. As a result, most games are complete blow-outs, and they are not fun to watch on stream. He said that for him scrims are fun, pro league matches are fun, duels against competent players are fun, but he can’t stream those for obvious reason, forcing him to play soloq, which is lame because unbalanced and full of terrible players.

Now, more realistically, what frustrates Helseth is that even as the most popular GW2 streamer, he rarely goes above 800 viewers at a time. He also said that the number of his followers increases too slowly. Naturally, that’s because GW2 is a low-population game. It’s not rocket science that if you want to be a successful streamer, you need to play a game that people are willing to watch.

GW2 pvp community likes to watch pvp streams. The pro-league viewership numbers are important when compared to the number of active pvp players (around 25k in EU in January 2015, probably more now). The problem is not that not enough people want to watch Helseth stream, it’s that not enough people play pvp in GW2.

Smash 4 makes you pay for DLCs and play in For Glory with people who paid for the DLC even if you haven’t. And nobody complains.

Actually a kitten ton of people complain. kitten you, Bayonetta!

To me it does not make sense from a gameplay point of view. How would that work? Would weakness affect the conditions already applied, which is weird (the guy has been clumsy retroactively?), or the conditions applied after that? If it’s the latter, would these conditions have a reduced damage for their entire duration, or only until weakness is cleansed? The former case is more realistic maybe, but then you would never be sure of how much the conditions tick on you.

There certainly is a better way to balance conditions.

Prince Vingador.8067:

The problem here is that every one wants to run the same skill or build call it wtv, and do well in 1v1 and team fights and have all the sustain at the same time also.

Lets talk about reapers atm , this class performs better in team fights imo, i always run a build to help team fights , so when im 1v1 a thief for example i shouldnt just win easy ( usually i do cause 90 percent cant play thief) but when i face a proper thief like sindrener or sizer or red levin its almost impossible to win because they dont just eat aoe and desingage if they need to .
U need to look at your build also and see against what classes u r up against then think what to do .
Reapers are not weak imo but having no invuls or blocks and now losing the chill damage hurts the class.
So less burst now, i see it as a big nerf to the class, and i need to adjust my build over this change .

I would like to suggest adding 2 stacks torment to chill damage insted of 1 bleed.

?

Prince Vingador.8067:

but when i face a proper thief like sindrener or sizer or red levin its almost impossible to win because they dont just eat aoe and desingage if they need to .

??

Prince Vingador.8067:

sizer

??? Wasn’t he in jail?

tacosvapos.4058:

Saw Wilson (https://www.twitch.tv/wilsonstorm) Playing around with a Hambow build last night/yesterday, and it looked pretty fun. I’ve tried it (even though he kept saying it’s not good and no one should be trying it ) and had moderate success/fun with it today.
Of course a couple of matches are not enough to make a decision, but maybe you’ll like it or find something worth improving!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQJATSjMdQVI22BehAnIGICMLA8B7Z6XY6tFwWwLYEA-TpBHABFcIACe/B7LDEwkittenjAgAPAAA

I’m still not sure about the Rune (Sunless), and I’m trying out different amulets (for example increasing healing power maybe?)

I’d like to use the Berserker Skill-line, because of Headbutt triggereing the Sunless Rune theoretically every 15 seconds, but I don’t know if that’s worth giving up the Strength line for..(Also Bow+Hammer F1 Skills while in berserk mode don’t feel as good as the regular ones..)

I’ve been playing this exact build and had a ton of fun. I love runes of the Sunless against mesmers, revs and other warriors, but I’ve now swapped it for Nightmare runes, and use Rampage instead of signet of rage. It still hits hard even with Mercenary’s Amulet, and if you time the rampage skills right you can get some nice interrupts, meaning weakness, bleeds and confusion stacks.

If you want to play berzerker, you have to give up Strength. That’s another playstyle, and it’s probably stronger. See the LB zerker builds in this thread.

I think the change makes sense. Playing warrior was always about passive sustain and active damage landing. Adrenal Health has the same design: you get to sustain if you manage to land your bursts. Sure it’s passive, but in a good way.

It’s a bug usually caused by condi transfers, and it’s very common when you play necro. Let me guess: you play a Sigil of Generosity on one of your weapon sets?

Frankly, it’s already better than first season. I would like to see tier loss being possible in saphire to get a better repartition of players in leagues in the end of the season (you’re basically one-shotting anyone with a thief in saphire if you start the season late, I’m sure better players should be there), but other than that, I think it’s fine. You notice the difference between ruby and diamond very clearly, so I assume with one more unforgiving division, it would be good.

Ruinaes.9571:

The requirement to cross division thresholds (and more importantly crossing enough of them to reach and complete Part IV) depends not on you. It depends on 20% you and 80% others (your party). This seems like an inconsistency to me that mkaes this much more difficult to attain.

That is also true of every dungeon or fractal achievement, and I don’t see why that is a problem. Conquest is considered group content, so if you are not pleased with the pugs you are getting, get some friends to play with you. Or hope for good pugs, or carry. Exactly the same three possibilities you have when you do a dungeon or a fractal.

Staff i arguably a strong weaponset as it is. I see no reason to buff it.

A buff to sword however, would be welcome.

Cynz.9437:

That can’t be true. Until celestial became a thing thieves were supposed to go far and win 1v1 fights. This is what i was told by my teams back then. This was my job and i have done it plenty of times. There was time thieves could win 1v1 if they played well. There was time thieves were good at 1v1. Now thief can’t win 1v1 most of the time even if they play well due to powercreep, nerfs for 3 years straight, passives etc. Devs butchered the class thanks to QQs from people that don’t know how to deal with stealth and thanks to revs.

I believe you. April 2014 marked the introduction of the celestial amulet, so I have never known another role. It may explains our divergences in sensibility.

Asrat.2645:

Lets just say I did not choose a class and committed 2k hours time to it, just to be able to run around the map and ‘+1’ the fights of others. Especially not with a class that, by concept, is commited to 1v1 scenarios.

When did you start playing? I started playing pvp in April 2014, and even then, I was told by experienced thieves that our role was not dueling, but +1 and decap points. If you don’t like that role, why don’t you pick one of the six/seven other professions that work exactly like you want the thief to be?

BeepBoopBop.5403:

but get real if you honestly think you can generalize the majority of a population as being “bad” rather than looking at class balance.

It depends. I main thief and I think they are two sides of the problem.

Yes, you see a lot of bad thieves, more than bad necros for example, because the role you fill is different from every other profession, and is in a way counter-intuitive: it is a class that does not fight in equal numbers in an MMO.

On the other hand, some skills and effects make it impossible for thieves to really work: nightmare runes, perma protection, bulk gyro, frost aura, weakness, etc. These things need nerfs, as well as a lot of hard hitting skills without any animation or skills with evade frames (their number at least tripled since HoT). Once those are nerfed however, thief will probably need some tuning down as well, given that it is quite strong even in the current meta, if you compare it to warrior or any of the base professions.

I’ve been playing thief this entire season, and it works. Yes, you need to put a bit of extra work, but honestly it has a lot going for it.

princode.2750:

Accept it thief is already out of meta
maybe pro thief can tell me what role does thief fit into a team:
1. decap ? memser can do better then thief because of portal
2. going far and winning 1v1. No most of the time they lose but memser can win almost any 1v1 with double moa
3. Team fight thief just melt 2 fast
or what else can they do maybe farm downstate and go around saying I got the higher score ya i’m OP =). Well at least your useless counterpart war do better in 1v1 then a thief

Carry from amber to diamond, because you can be in every fight to make sure nobody kittens up, and you basically kill druids/DH/revs/thieves in seconds if they don’t have enough awareness (and they don’t in scrub leagues).

After that, well, it’s not that great, but it can be if the other team has more than one necro (which is really common in soloq these days).

You can hit people in stealth. You can’t if they have evade frames on a lot of their skills. You should probably train against stealth builds, this looks like a personal issue of yours.

That being said, revenants hits too hard, and evades too much (most HoT builds share those characteristics), but it’s true that other builds are equally frustrating too fight against: scrapper with evade frames, blocks or reflects on most of their skill bar, builds with their perma protection, minions, bulk gyro and what not, lame flashy animations that are not proportional to the importance of the skill (DH), and passive condi application (frost aura on reaper ). Yes, rev needs a nerf in both sustain and damage, but at lest the concept beind the power build is rather enjoyable

1) Play interrupt thief
2) Spam your stuff
3) Go back here and tell me how far you made it

Believe me young one, spam less, concentrate more, and you’ll be les worried about being carried by your team.

I play thief. I would end up serving jail time in real life as a result from all the reports.

Thief is incredible to carry in soloq until you reach diamond. There it becomes harder to be useful

Cool. Can I have your stuff?

JTGuevara.9018:

Let’s not congratulate OR hate on him. Leeto merely exploited an ATROCIOUS league system that was DESIGNED for people to grind to legendary.

Yeah, shame on that abuser for playing the OP base necro and getting easy games by solo queuing

Storm.1653:

of course you did it on a necro the most op class atm.. if you did it on warrior id be impressed. nothing too see here, move along.

Without Reaper Shroud, without Chill of Death, without any shout. Still impressive.

Most of these problems come from our own incapacity to doubt our own skill. Once you stop blaming your team mates and try to improve the game becomes enjoyable again.

Don’t get me wrong. I also rage, and I also think I’m the best player this game has ever seen. Then I start to lose and I do something else.

Play Rune of Svanir if you don’t like chill

Mightybird.6034:

Let’s make moa turn everyone in game into moa! Infinite range! Moa for all!

(that’d actually be halriously trolly)

April 1st is only in two weeks. Might be a fun idea

edit: Also, your name makes your comment hilarious

First of all, the map needs to stay. We don’t want another Capricorn.

That being said, I would like to see, by order of importance:

1) A fix to the jump pads: it’s a fun idea, but right now they are unreliable. Make them like jumping and gliding: executed by the client and not the server. Also, you could change them so that they try to propel you on top of the platform when you stand still, while still being able to correct your jump mid-air somehow (to allow fake-jumping and other kiting technique).

2) The platform around the cannon is too small, and has no LoS spots. Dueling up there lacks the flavor combat has in the rest of the game

3) Frankly, gliding would be a super cool addition. The map is meant for fun anyway, and getting pushed off the Skyhammer would you send you back into the brawl. Epic. The only problem I see would be the mid-air immob bug.

GorgeousDave.9608:

If it wasn’t for the pointless need to show off my kitten to people on an MMO that neither care nor will remember, I’d keep my Elite Wings of Glory equipped full time.

Equip the Elite Wings of Glory, and use the legendary backpack as a glider skin. There, best of both worlds

Laserbolt.6731:

they just urgently need a way to identify decent players caught with an artificially low MMR and up their MMR as well and move them further up the divisions as well.

They could, but I fear the number of players that are actually in that case if by far inferior to the number of the players convinced that they are. Egos could be bruised.

In the Reaper line, since you play Spite, I would suggest to try Blighter’s Boon, with Chilling Victory and a sigil of Strength. It really gives you a lot of sustain: you’ll notice the difference.

Cynz.9437:

still trash in tourneys

Do you play in tourneys ? Cause I know I don’t.

I’m with you though. Still hoping for the nerf hammer to smash the power creep.

Anomaly.7612:

Zilvereen.2091:

Anomaly.7612:

I’ve been using blinding powder for ages. Is it worth dropping for BD?

I believe yes! First of all “it breaks stuns”

Blocking can save you from a lot of stuff that otherwise would have killed you e.g. Dragonhunters traps and Mesmer’s Gravity Wells etc etc

and also it gives you a counterattack stun-interrupt.

Need more? Its on 12 seconds cooldown.

That does sound pretty cool, but the block is really short, and there’s a lot of unblockable attacks in the game right now, but it does look really good. I’ve just never seen a Thief use it and be really successful in ranked, but I think that’s just an issue with ranked and the meta right now, than Thief itself.

It’s just that BP offers so much versatility that it’s hard to let go. But you could give BD a shot: it’s definitely a good skill.

That’s a very… specific problem

Dothl Lai.5829:

Someone please tell me what is this. Could this be solved by simply “git gud” huh? This is bs when I know my class and the rotations.

Do you think you’re the best you could be? Or do you think you still have room to improve? Then do that.

edit : I didn’t realize I responded to you both times. Sorry, I didn’t mean to single you out. An aweful lot of people on these forums are in the same mindset you are.

You forgot d/p, who is the only build that really compliments the thief’s strengths. I mean, let’s face it, I’d take a necro over a staff thief for big damage in team fights, and I’d take a Scrapper over a condi thief any day.

In general, you don’t really want to pick up a 1v1 as a thief, especially if it’s a necro with full ds.

That being said, it’s not an impossible match-up. But you’re making it hard by playing s/d. It’s a dueling set, meaning it can’t burst, and you’ll lose the sustained fight against the reaper.
You need to play Unhindered Combattant if you want to be effective in this meta (unless you play staff, maybe). It removes Chill on every dodge, no need to tell you why it’s useful.
Your best chance is to play d/p with Impacting Disruption. Reapers are really easy to interrupt, especially if you save your Steal for when they go into Reaper Shroud.

Anyway, I would advise not to duel the necros, but to wait till they duel someone (or they peel from a team fight), and then burst them to death. You’d be more useful.

Ario.8964:

I’d like to point out that you guys need to not generalize in your conversations about Engineer. The engineer is balanced fairly well, scrapper on the other hand is still power creeped to high heaven (as is reaper and herald hence them being the only classes you see being stacked). If you mean the engi then say the engi if you mean scrapper then say scrapper. It’s not hard and it goes a long way to keeping communication clear to avoid misunderstandings.

I love both base engi and Scrapper, design-wise. But you’re right about Scrapper being OP. It doesn’t change the fact that it looks and feels cool.

Your post made me realize that I actually liked most on the engineer’s traitlines.

That being said, I think Explosives would be a lot more fun if the GM traits were somewhat reworked, and if the Grenadier trait was doing another effect, while buffing the untraited grenades. Also, the Scrapper traitline offers a bit too much, a bit too passively (Adaptative Armor, I’m looking at you). I like the others.

I love GW2 pvp, but I have to warn you that the learning curve is pretty steep. Do play in ranked for now: stick to unranked. Try to duel a friend to get better reflexes, and as someone already said, grab a working build for your profession on metabattle.

kdaddy.5431:

All i can simply do is make sure i win my 1 vs 1 and 2 vs 2 and run builds with good speed to make sure i can get to another point as quick as possible to win that fight.

Then why do you think you deserve to consistently win in soloq? You have to carry to have more than 50% win ratio in soloq.

Helseth is arrogant, but the fact is that almost every game he loses, after he has said the mandatory “my team mates were trash”, he talks about everything he could have done better to win the game. And that’s probably one of the reason he’s a top player (not because he’s a pro: he’s on a sabbatical). Instead of always complaining about your team mates, try to get better, and to carry better: build momentum (play a mobile build), never expect your team mates to win their 1v1s, make sure every second of your time you make an amazing play, and you’ll see that not only your win ratio will improve, but you’ll also have more fun playing.