Guild Wars 2

1. Solo Queue (as mentioned in SOTG, will be implemented soon)

2. Class Balance (mainly viability of Warrior and Necro, rest is on track)

3. Reward system (gems/gold + beyond glory farming: class, race, leaderboard rank oriented rewards,)

Don’t forget to factor in:

S/D steals boons, so not only do you hit harder, the opponent just lost his protection and regen.
Besides, Backstab is burst/spike damage, while Sword has incredible sustain. It generally does way higher DPS in a longer fight.

Mug was simply a mechanic the devs didn’t like. But apparently, they are quite fond of implementing another mindlessly spammable gimmick skill that has no downside into the game.
S/D is boring to play, very annoying to play against and uninteresting to watch, imo.

To be honest, kudos to the thief that manages to coordinate his burst between all the aegis, boonsharing and invulnerabilites without mug.

Agreed, it’s very silly. I keep thinking I ranked up. -_-

Kasama.8941:

Everything else but Backstab is a bonus.

Further more, running with Signet of Shadows makes sure you are never slow. All of this makes the gap closer from Heartseeker and Shadow Shot nothing more then a nice bonus, at best. Seriously, dagger/pistol is just dagger/dagger, without the downside of having to gain stealth in melee range. Using Black Powder when stomping, isn’t any different then using Cloak and Dagger when stomping.

I don’t see how you can have more initiative with dagger/pistol, when you spend more initiative on Black Powder+Heartseeker, then dagger/dagger does on Cloak and Dagger alone.

I don’t think you realise how strong Black Powder is. A thief should never stomp if a teammate is close enough to do it, BP allows you to stomp Guardians and Rangers who interrupt you even in stealth.

Signet of Shadows is never worth it either, it locks you out of running one important utility you can’t afford to skip: Shadow Refuge or Shadowstep.
Also, you’ll never use Death Blossom, while you can use Shadow Shot on ocassion.

Basically, D/D is selfish, while D/P is team orientated. P/P is team oriented, but lacks damage, stealth, mobility and requires utilities/stats that don’t fit the meta.

Kasama.8941:

The only synergy dagger/pistol has is a stealth trigger, which is something that off hand dagger already can do. But the fact that you rely on a stealth trigger to make a weapon set viable, says everything about how broken the Thief is. If gaining stealth from weapon sets is all the Thief’s got going for it, something needs to happen. At least my change would make it interesting to play.

D/P is one of the most versatile weaponsets in the game, actually.

Dagger has a brilliant auto-attack, both range and aoe cone are superior to most swords and greatswords. Ofcourse, Backstab is essential!
Heartseeker scales amazingly with the increased damage on low HP traits, it evades and gapcloses.
Shadow Shot is an unblockable gapcloser with decent range and it blinds to boot.

The Daze on Pistol is nearly spammable and instant, it’s borderline overpowered.
Blind field is used for stealth, but it is incredible to set up stomps without requiring stability too.

It is near perfect in design and outshines D/D by it’s initiative costs, unrelience on melee range and basic utility. All skills are required for the combo, which creates a high skill cap and they synergize with utilities, traits and stats.

On topic: P/P damage = Unload and any channeling skill is terrible in GW2. They fail on dodge/block and are impossible to cancel (confusion). P/P is flawed and I have little hope for it becoming near to viable again after the Quickness nerf.
Since the off-hand skills are exactly the same on D/P but Pistol main hand lacks the synergy with the off-hand there is no logical reason to run it besides gimmick builds.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Look, the big problem for necros is the range of conditions we have isnt sufficient. No burning, no confusion, less poison than some other classes, not a great deal of vuln on good weapons, lack of immobs on condi weapons. This means that all those ‘cure condition’ traits and skills (shouts, cantrips) always seem to wipe their condis.

Necro still has good stuff. Fear is good. Corrupt boon is amazing, signet res is good, consume conditions is good.

The new condition – if it is powerful and not on a huge cd (under 30 seconds) will help A LOT potentially.

Exactly.

I hope they make it a counter to Condition cleanses, for example:
- Daze, if you attempt to clear the new condition.
- Self-harm on heal like Poison + Confusion in one.
- Basic dispell protection for Bleeds (uncleansable bleeds while new condition is applied).
- A debuff to Boon effectiveness when condition is applied.

Besides, Necro is a raw stats class, we scale well with large amounts of Vitality, for example. In contrast with the Guardian kittenlies on boons to function and scales better with Healing Power through Regeneration.
I’d say if Life Stealth would scale with Toughness or we had a functional trait to make it scale with Crit we could stay alive better as was intended.

JonathanSharp.7094:

The balance guys and I are watching this thread, and we’ve really enjoyed some of the ideas you guys are putting out.

Great! Any word on the new condition? What can we expect?

Also, can I ask what are your thoughts on making the staff untraited circles bigger, while leaving the unblockable aspect in the traits? It would open up more logical build paths!

Pendragon.8735:

The Necro feels at least 10 trait points shy of a complete build to me, no matter which ways I build. One good idea I liked was them making the Greater Marks trait default, your marks just start the game at 240 radius and you don’t have those near mandatory points in Death Magic.

Exactly.

This was suggested to Devs last SOTG, I think by Symbolic, but I don’t think they understood.

Making the standard radius of staff bigger and having the unblockable aspect in the Traits would open up a lot of new build paths!

Nice initiative! This showcases how GW2 is in dire need for better grouping mechanics and communication in-game.

Main Profession: Thief
Alternate Professions: Necro, Engineer, Guardian, Ranger
Account name: Stof.9584
Practice Availablity: Weekends, GMT+1
Current PvP rank (Not Leaderboard): 34
Level of Desire: make top 1000 at least once!
NA or EU: EU

I like it! +1

Message Body length must at least be 15.

I don’t believe we need more testing to find a viable build, simple theorycrafting wipes most of the table immediately based on factors such as cooldowns, low damage, low survivability and low mobility.

Recently I tried running a Hybrid Power/Condi build. The idea is not to rely on close range, but still deal direct damage close to that of a pure Power build, while sustaining through Condition cleanse.

Much like HGH Engineer, it relies on might stacking to reach acceptable DPS, but it lacks the spammability of Grenades and with S/D thieves spam it is basically suicidal. Blood Is Power + Might duration runes + Life Blast allow you to have constant 10+ Might stacks, though, if you do it right.

Denshee has a similar build on his Twitch page, though I think it’s a bit outdated.

I think it has potential and it’s rather fun to play! Perhaps someone can make suggestions for my Hybrid Power/Condi build?

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Allow Leeching to scale with damage/healing.

Yes, it would be interesting to hear why it currently doesn’t.

Would be amazing if Necro could heal off an enemies HP somehow, maybe with the new condition syphoning health from their regeneration?

One niche the necromancer has: Flesh Golem can nearly destroy Turret in Kyhlo in one charge.

I definitely agree, there is no niche for Necromancer left.

Sword/Dagger thief brings off-cd boonstrip boonsteal! – Effectively taking over all what was left of Necromancer’s unique teamcentered play in one minor patch…

Traits suffer from bugs. Utilities have huge cooldowns (wells) pared with low usefulness (spectral skills) and are uneffective against players compared to mobs (wells / minions).

Our weaponsets lack versatility. Both axe and focus see limited play (let’s just forget about warhorn after gear lock).
Staff is brilliant, no question. However, second weaponset requires main hand: scepter (condi) or dagger (power) with off hand: dagger.

I’m intrigued by the new condition that will be added to Deathshroud, but I can’t imagine it will resolve the issues which are holding Necro back at the moment as listed above.
It’s obvious a condition centered class will be outshined by all others if it has no access to burning, so maybe with this new condition Necro will be on top on conditions.

Perhaps Fear could be more prominent: fear distance/run speed/duration – right now, it plays as weak variation of a knockback with shorter duration.

I feel Deathshroud in general has a lower skillcap than the developers seem to think, so it will never be altered similar to Ranger’s pet skills.

I have two level 30’s – necro & thief, but PVE bores me. Rank 33 in the mists atm.

Ever since they implemented the SPVP skins on the login screen, it does not bother me anymore.

Sounds interesting.

1. I like this idea for a secondary objective and it sounds like a good way to make the close bunker player’s role a lot more fun, but possible quite a lot harder!

2. Maybe there ought to be a timer/spawn on the commune, though. Also, Mesmer portal would be an issue if you could simply use the Map portal before/after Mesmer portal, etc. – to counter snowballing if you hold the farthest point.

I think the tower idea would be really fun, much like fighting on Clocktower. I like the little jumping puzzled in Spvp and the advantage of verticle mobility with certain classes.

Zodian.6597:

Everyone compares every single game to LoL in reference to esports. (…)
“LoL will never be as competitive as HoN” -most moba players in 2009.

LoL is where it is today because Riot (and later other companies like Intel) threw insane amounts of cash into sponsoring and hosting tournaments.

Cash incentives = dedicated players = #1 marketing tool, which results in more casual players, which = $$$$$, reinvest portion of the money made off of casual players back into cash incentives and you get LoL’s business model in a nutshell.

Completely agree.

The community should support the player initiatives those streamers undertake, but Guild Wars 2 Spvp’s chances at becoming an Esport are largely dependent on how Arenanet chooses to / is able to promote it.

To be honest, LoL and Starcraft II are unfair references. They are the peak of Esports currently and it is a healthy goal for Arenanet, but when it comes down to viewership on Twitch only other MMO Pvp (= WoW) should be considered competition to GW2.

WoW has Blizzcon and was able to corner the market by mass-promotion and the simple fact of being the first to achieve such a large playerbase. Backed by Blizzard’s entire infrastructure, it is easy to generate large numbers – hell people even watch Diablo III streamers… is that an Esport?

In short: there are no other MMOs that can be considered Esports. World of Warcraft is the only realistic comparison and it doesn’t even have a spectator mode or regular broadcasted tournaments.
Please, just appreciate the work other players put into those streams and have fun watching / playing the game.

sorrow.2364:

Necro are still in a very sad position:
(…)
6. Burst, conditions and bunker builds are all underperforming compared to other professions

Agreed, balance is improving, but Necro needs some love next patch (new condition)!

I hope after all the tweaking, they will not break the meta by buffing underused skills for the sake of build diversity: S/D thief is a gimmick no one likes.

Pyroatheist.9031:

If you kill 6 caravans per hour (one every 10 minutes), 24/7, with absolutely no stopping, it will take you over 19 years to get that achievement.

Hilarious or depressing? Can’t decide.

Authority.4386:

I suggest adding 1k glory token available in shop for 1 laurel (what do you do with your laurels anyway?).

I expect to see a lot of kittens (Endless Mystery Cat Tonic) in the mists, after the first 100 days are over!

cymerdown.4103:

I agree, all of these above issues are hurting my enjoyment of the game, especially the skill queue and right-click targeting. Please fix!

+1, Exactly.

At least, get the guy a GW2 sweatband!

+1

uberkingkong.8041:

Rangers get brought everytime spirit watch is tpvp map.

Not sure about sanctuary – no hit immune to everything, while grabbing the orb, so guardians get brought too.

Is it Anet’s intention to make guardians commune without getting interrupted? Please, tell me one way to interrupt them.

Ground aoe and unblockable skills can pierce Sanctuary, and so can all melee hits if you have stability.

I do agree, it’s hard to counter, because the commune time on the orb is faster than any projectile or player can travel outside of melee range…

Player incentive and the leaderboards should go hand-in-hand, yet I’ve been stuck at the 95% rank for weeks now and I’ve seen friends go up to 400+ then drop down into the % bracket a day later.

Is it time for the leaderboards to be expanded now the playerbase has grown? An actual rank is more meaningful than a unclarified percentile.

Should leaderboards be less volatile, so losing rating to players with low average amount of games is less of a factor?

For future patches: a real solo queue with visible ranking and bronze/silver/gold brackets?

Want to hear what the Pvp community thinks after the last patch without necroing the leadboards feedback thread.

I really wish the mobility abilities that are allowed while carrying the orb were universally balanced. Yet, they are not.

This asks for a gimmicky team composition and it makes solo queuing very hit and miss.

Holding two points is very difficult without a premade setup, unless you completely dominate the other team (which should never happen with good matchmaking).
Sounds like my issue is mainly solo queue/premade related? Yes, it is. Implement a real solo queue already!

+1 Thanks for the effort!

Caed, how have your builds changed since the recent patch hit Mug and Shortbow?

I really enjoy playing your D/P build, but what are you thoughts on the S/D changes?

Congrats on your Rank #1 NA, btw.

Evan Lesh.3295:

This is intentional for performance reasons. We’ve been very clear on the limitations of the in-game spectator mode and how it is not a global observer mode. An observer mode that allows thousands of live viewers is much more difficult and complicated technology. What we have will still go a long way in fostering community building, learning, and shoutcasting.

Understandable, it is designed for specific functionality, e.g. shoutcasting/private matches.

However, I don’t think this overlaps with the expectations of the community: I don’t agree the limitations were made very clear, but that’s irrelevant now.

The fact is this system relies on resources outside of the game (streaming websites) to reach the intended audience. That is smart, because it allows viewers to branch off from multiple popular games.

But: it will require a commitment from the GW2 team to use those channels.
- An official channel with contast streaming of top matches.
- Large invitationals/tournaments with professional casters.
- Tools for people willing to cast (recorded/live) games themselves and broadcast them.

This has nothing to do with the pace of in-game development. I just doubt Arenanet is willing to split profits with 3rd parties: the history of banning players for uploading footage to Youtube, etc.

It would make more sense to allow players to spectate from the Game Client, since they stay connected to the Gem Store.
Dota 2, for example, obviously has Steam’s functionality in place, but it allows them to profit from players within the game: they charge currency to watch the E-Sports matches within the client.

There is a limited number of Spectators allowed? And it cuts into the amount of Players in the match?

I haven’t been able to play after the patch so far, but I feel pessimistic about playing my Thief ever again.

Yes, it seems out of the blue.

Ranger pets were a waste to focus down already and especially broken in Downed State.

The improvements to responsiveness / AI were needed, but making them even more survivable lowers the skillcap even more and I don’t think that is what Rangers need, nor what SPvp needs right now.

Besides the leash range hasn’t been reduced, so this buff will be unpleasant.

I must say I agree.

Past nerfs and recent buffs have proven AI is difficult to balance in PvP.

It’s not fun to play if you have no control (ex. Minions), but it’s too intensive for new players to give more control (Anet has stated in the last SOTG).

To make a list:
Ranger pets – RNG secondary skills, greatest source of Ranger damage, made tankier next patch.
Engineer turrets – get focused because players have brains, but PVE mobs don’t.
Warrior banners – can’t be destroyed, no counters / passive playstyle.
Necro minions – AI is unreliable, weak active skills, low hp, players will aoe or focus player.
Ele ults – reliable source of boons & damage, but low interaction.
Thief thieves guild – instant activation, long cd, gimmick trap.
Guardian spirit weapons – easily kited, RNG, nerfed in past patch.

I’d say the only class which has an effective playstyle related to non-player summons is Mesmer, even though I don’t like playing it myself.

Honestly, this is just a big nerf for Thieves, because burst is all we have right now.

I don’t understand the reasoning behind the heal, however. It seems very minimal and a waste if it’s instant when you initiate with Steal, which is the sole purpose of the skill in my eyes. Gap closer > the ability you steal.

I do agree, Mug was overpowered, especially considering the trait investment was so minimal.

All in all, it will make the best thief build weaker and perhaps allow SD to be viable, but I still feel that weaponset is gimmicky.
Spamming to clear boons sounds just as boring as spamming to apply boons, imo Eles…

I liked the high risk / high reward playstyle of Thief and don’t agree we need another class with sustained damage and survivability… which can always be achieved by taking more conservative runes/amulet combinations.

Though, I am excited for the increased mobility, I was confused about why they weren’t more specific about it.

Nord.5360:

Kitten, was I eating my mic?

The volume on your mic was a bit low, indeed.

Caed is a babe. Just sayin’.

Want to say thanks to Grouch and GW2Guru, as well as the Devs! You really stepped up this time, well structured interesting debate!

I feel this player to developer feedback is really making GW2 a better game and I, for one, am excited about the changes.

Atherakhia.4086:

No one suggests the condition build with p/d and sb?

Can you point us in the right direction? With a link, maybe?

It seems more forgiving for new players than D/P burst, because of its survivability and stealth duration.

hrkljus.1243:

Oblivion.8307:

I did this with 30ish dyes and got 3 white and a midnight fire dye, nearly 30g. Luck of the draw i guess.

proof – http://i.imgur.com/nX1TnuO.jpg

Wow dude which god did you sacrifice your firstborn to? :O

I bet it was Grenth!

In all seriousness, I only Spvp in GW2 and I’ve never had more than 3g. There’s no way I’ll spend any on cosmetics from the shop, because most are unusable in the Mists and I simply can afford them…

It would be nice if you could earn gold in sPvp from anything besides RNG dye drops, I’d like to buy more character slots from my time in tournaments.

Rerroll.9083:

No skill in the game should be unblockable. It was not a nerf but a fix. Deal with it.

Every Necro plays with staff and always takes 10 points in Death Magic for Greater Marks – increase area of marks and marks become unblockable.

“Fix” that and there won’t be any Necromancers left in the Mists.

Boon-hate Warriors.

I’ve been playing a lot of HGH Engineer lately and to be honest it is really strong.

However, it is the perfect example of how average damage/survivability should feel!

With all the crazy sustain and boon builds around it is very frustrating to play most classes/builds who can’t even get them below half hp, no wonder this build is popular!
If only Anet would nerf Ele/Gaurdian’s boon sharing we’d see more build variety to teamfight with.

+1 Great advice! More people with this mentality will make GW2 a better game.

I use it, because clicking is slower. Your movement becomes more fluid and the playingfield is less cluttered.

Biggest con: you can’t see the maximum range of abilities, so you must rely on your knowledge of their range and aoe size.

Sometimes your aim can be off without the visual indicator, and you’ll cast on a closer object in the environment. Or you reach too far, the ability won’t go off: you saved cd, but you might be too slow with the second cast.

The game is very intuinitive, though, but new players might want to turn it off when playing an unfamiliar class.

Will definitely try this build on my Ranger. Thanks for the effort!

Your channel is becoming a great source for new players who are looking for proven tournament builds.

If the GW2 community was more activity on Youtube, I think more people would notice the spvp side!

Soon. It’s obvious, there should be punishment for leaving/afking/griefing.

Removal from queuing for a period of time would be the simplest fix. League of Legends’ tribunal is a good example of a community driven punishment system.

I’ll be watching.

I hope the Devs will bring new ideas to the table, if nothing else. Because last SOTG, I was rather disappointed with their contribution.

Thanks for the effort, Grouch!

Dan.8709:

Tell us, did your friend automatically die/went down again after getting back to normal?

Actually, he was in downed state for at least 2 secs when the Mesmer used the elite skill on him.

He remained in downed state: could use his class downed state abilities, but I could not heal him out of downed state and I don’t think he could be stomped by the enemies.
So the Mesmer and an Ele simply damaged him until he died. As far as I can tell, they purposefully used it to hold the point.

@Dastion: “I tend to like getting Moa’d in PvP, it’s like getting a free Ride the Lightning :-P”

The point is his abilities were not swapped out to the Moa’s. He became a sitting duck, if you will.

Mesmers can use the ‘Moa Morph’ elite skill on an opponent in Downed state. Is this a bug or does it work as intended?

I am asking because it made my teammate untargettable – I couldn’t heal him out of his downed state. But he could still use his class abilities, while the Moa is supposed to switch those out.

Great! Will enjoy hearing the top players talk about balance and the like.

It will give the Devs a better chance to reply with a prepared statement about the coming patch, after concisely hearing what the playerbase thinks. We can only hope they’ll wise up and listen this time around.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Very interesting. However, I won’t have real interest until the list is expanded and my name pops up there.

I also want to add that this system, well… it kinda makes me want to play ranked matches only with a competitive team (which I can’t anymore), because with the current match system, playing with a team increases your odds, and playing solo decreases your odds. That pretty much means that I’ll probably stick to hotjoin until the devs implement a solo(/ duo) only queue, or else I’ll lose rank points unfairly whenever I get matched against premade teams.

+1

Indeed! Complete opposite of incentive to play ranked.

Surely, the Leaderboards didn’t reset MMR!?

Look at the top players, they must have been queueing into each other as premade teams (+ been given higher rating gain because of it) just from having the same MMR before and after rating was implemented.

While people at the bottom started solo queuing and got stomped by premades, others grouped up with high MMRed people and got pulled right into the top 100 for playing below 10 matches.

Concerns were raised long ago about Leaderboards, they require: rating based on classes, seperate rating for teams/solo, no mixing of MMR, punishment for leavers, no class swapping during games, …

This system will be exploited the second rating becomes visible, if it’ll ever be worth our time that is.

I agree, I tried it multiple times and I can’t even be bothered to level up my character although WvW requires it.

I fail to see the strategy and fun behind these large groupfights. Dying to cleave or AOE, because you get rolled by a lagging, perma booned mob that greatly outnumbers your own in an empty sandbox world…
I don’t want to spam one button for hours to destroy a gate, even with the expensive, but wildly uninteresting sieges it takes so long.

It’d be interesting if there were multiple ways to enter a point, but the map just suffers from stale design. Nothing but large cliffs and empty fields for the most part.

From my experience, it’s exactly the opposite of what Spvp offers: leveled footing on all characters, multiple buildpaths (sort of… not exclusively long range/aoe), a dynamic playingfield, clear objectives, fast paced and nearly none-stop action (instead of running for ages), …
No clue why you’d prefer WvW over Spvp, except for the guilt of not playing with the character you leveled up.