Guild Wars 2

I’m going to wait till I have played the map myself (hopefully in the closed beta).

It was the most zergy map ever, even more zergy than foefire.

Maybe if the would rework the secondary mechanic and remove all the water…

Hoax.7962:

Awesome, thanks for the thorough answer. One more thing, I remember different weapons allowing for different skills. Does the game somehow allow level 1 players who jump straight into PvP to use all their available weapons and skills, or do we need to earn one of each weapon through PvE before we jump in?

Weapon skills unlock like everything else once you join the Heart of the Mist.
A vendor there will sell you all weapons without a level requirement, so that even a level 1 character has access to them.

Hoax.7962:

I seem to remember characters all the way from level 1 scaling up to the maximum level and PvPing with one another, does that still happen?

Yes. Everyone is on the same level. Your character only needs to wear the three starting items (chest, legs and boots). The stats and quality level of them does not matter at all. In the heart of the mist click at the top of the screen on the helmet so select an amulet for stats, a rune-set and weapon sigils of your choice.

If so, is there any advantage to hitting the maximum level before you start PvPing?

For better understanding, let’s refer to the maximum level as PvE-Level. It does not bring you anything except you are getting to learn and know your character and getting some exerpience through playing some PvE first. Might help to not get beaten if you just jump into pvp.

There are SOME skills, you have to unlock for pvp. You have the choice, if you complete a pve content or spent some gold to do so. But not a lot of professions are using those anyway, so you should be fine without them. (f.e. condition survival ranger use the trait ‘survival of the fittest’ which costs about 3 or 5 gold, don’t remember).

This goes hand in hand with my previous question, but is there any gear or anything to work toward to improve your PvP performance? Or is everyone supposed to be on the same plane?

Also, how much room for advancement is there for solo players?

Advancement to what?
The only reward structure we currently have in PvP are the reward tracks providing you with gold, skins and exotic items. It does not matter, how you play to advance there, but winning in the rated arena (ranked or unranked) would be the fastest way, but even loosing in practice mode will advance it.

Can you realistically have a good time in PvP playing alone?

Yes, but it is more fun with friends.
We have a ranked system in place, which should place you with players at about your own skill level and it is taking into account if you are playing alone or with a group, and it should find teammates and opponents for you accordingly.

I love playing my individualized mesmer build. But I understand, that you are not satisfied with the standard shatter build.

Congratulations!

Hyunato.8102:

My question is what’s the right thing to do? Is there one?

No, it depends on the situation.

I know, that does not help you, there are too many things you have to consider, and then try to choose the right thing depending on the situation.

How much time will it take to kill AND stomp the opponent?
How long will your friend survive in the down state? Will he get stomped soon?
It all depends on the professions around.
Maybe you will manage to survive yourself, and the better choice is to retreat.

Sometime a combination is the right choice f.e. rezzing your friend a bit, that he survives long enough to kill and stomp your opponents.

Sometimes it is the better choice to but your opponent in the down state after your friend died, that he will not get rallied.

I’d love to see Helseth commenting. I know, not all viewers will share his sense of humor, but he has insight at the top level of pvp and big knowledge of the game what most of your mentioned shoutcasters are just lacking.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Got to love that Ranger getting back to far immediately after stomp

That’s a different ranger.

Yeah, both videos look more like lags and not hacks, but who knows, ArenaNet can investigate.

Please edit your post and bring it to a constructive level, otherwise it just gets deleted.

ReaperStriker.1982:

Almost daily, I come across people who are speedhacking, don’t you play your games anet?

1.) I have myself yet not encountered a single person using a speed hack. Are you sure they used a hack and where not just lagging or you just didn’t understood the skills they were using? F.e. someone accused me of teleport hacking a few days ago, because I used ‘Necrotic Traversal’ from the ‘Flesh Worm’ and ‘Spectral Recall’ from the ‘Spectral Walk’.

2.) Regardless of the case, if you encounter a person infringing the rules of conduct f.e. with using a hack, report him ingame and use exploits@arenanet.com with whatever you have to proof it (f.e. video material).

The answer is: we don’t know.

I agree withz Akikaze, that I would classify it as match fixing, but since ArenaNet has not yet closed the rank farm arena.

Personally I think there is a difference between ‘being against the rules’ and ‘getting punished’.

I hope with the new slides I’ll be able to position my asura camera at the same heights as all my other chars.

btt: If you can’t see the animations well enough, how about not scrolling out max?
Anyway, I hope, that the standard enemy models will also get enabled in unranked.

Those are complete different things.

MMR != ladder points != personal pvp rank (rabbit to dragon)

I think it only increases your own personal pvp rank.
Edit: Back in the days it gave glory, but that currency does not exist anymore.

The fix didn’t went live last patch, did it?

I recommend to generate a new chat tab purely for damage taken. That information would be useful for us. We have no clue what happened to you.

They could have introduced a new bug I am unaware of (we already such a chase, when they AI damage got accidentally increased in a patch).

Seyiwaji.4082:

5 sec Retaliation: for a phantasm after summon is a joke.

Ofc we can talk about how useful the trait is. Feel free to provide some suggestions to increase it’s effectiveness.

It is still one of the more useful traits compared to f.e. ’Disruptor’s Sustainment’.

manveruppd.7601:

I too would prefer separate queues, for a simple reason: Stronghold will suck in the beginning! It’s brand new, it won’t have been adequately tested, and it won’t be ready for prime time! It needs a “test season” and tweaking before it can get taken seriously as a competitive map.

Agree. I don’t think custom arenas can fulfill that purpose. Maybe Stronghold will be the only map available on the hot beta?

Why should the trait be useless?
Your phantasm will most likely get hit (depending which part of gw2 you play), and therefor retaliation will deal some damage… might not be a lot, but it is still +damage.

I can list you some pros(still would prefer separate queues):

• More queues would split the community even further, and therefore increase either the time you spent in the queue or it would reduce the match quality / increase the span of the MMRs each participating player has.

• Variety: You will not get bored from only playing one stronghold map over and over again / this might also disguise the fact, that there (given the current information) will only be one stronghold map.

• It will force players to adjust their setup depending on the map they get.

Ayrilana.1396:

This is something not a lot of people are used to, or have experienced before, as this has been practically nonexistent in GW2

You are right, this might be reason of the bad experience I had with the Dragon Ball Arena. The problem still remains and I don’t see it going away anytime soon (well ofc the Arena might go away today). Therefore I still want to refer to my above posted suggestions which might improve the whole experience from feeling like being tortured to actually having fun.

From the information given, I would guess the following:

1.) Average MMR is calculated and then adjusted to the number of players in your team (+2% per player) and used to find a suitable opponent.

2.) After the game ends every players MMR is adjusted individually. F.e. a loose will reduce the MMR from the higher rated player more than from the lowest => it will draw the players together.The speed of this process depends on the Ratings Deviation, so f.e. new players will get adjusted quicker.

Ayrilana.1396:

In the future, they should just include at least enough PvE daily achievements so PvE players can complete the event specific daily. I feel this would be a better approach rather than nerf the activity which has similar gameplay to a large percentage of PvP games.

I consider myself a PvP player (average casual, still about 90% of my time in gw2 I put into pvp), I just prefer good! PvP gameplay similar to our Conquest Maps. The dragon ball arena does not offer that for me.

Maybe due to the minigame character you get matches with and against every kind of player that it can end up in a zerg vs chaos comb. How many players do you think know about the spawn timer (f.e. 28:20 / 27:20) for the middle orbs?

On the dragon arena I have been on both sides, the zergy and the get-zerged side. I usually end up at the top of the score (does not mean a lot, only that you hit the opponent at least once, but well, what else do we have?).

I still dislike the arena and it is still ONLY minigame in gw2 I have no fun playing it.
I don’t have to like everything on gw2, if there are people out there who actually enjoy playing it, it is fine for me; still, I had a really bad experience with the dragon ball arena I felt the need to put the word out. You know, importance of feedback and so on

Are there actually players out there, who liked the Arena so much, that they continued playing after they got all achievements?

The Dragon Ball Arena is the minigame of all gw2 minigames I had the least fun playing it.

Yes, there have been some fun games where you have small skirmishes and maybe be able to just win a 1vs2.
But then are this zergy matches, where you just snowball over the map and farm with your zerg everyone respawning.

How many players actually completed Dragon’s Gaze?

Suggestions:

• Lower the amount of Interrupts necessary for ’Dragon’s Gaze’ to 25.
• Disable to ability to take ability-balls if you have already unlocked that ability.
• Improve the #1 ability without the orb. F.e. #1 should be at the same level as the current improved #1; improvement orb could add a cleave similar to ’Dragon’s Claw’ from the Ele.
• Add a comeback mechanic. Maybe some ability-balls spawn in your own base?

Random Weird Guy.3528:

But instead I occasionally see people taking the current leaderboards seriously, which causes even worse drama.

Agree. The current ladder needs to change / improve asap.

Yes, it would cause a lot of drama.

Basically in every thread you post you would have to support your argument with your own MMR. – well, I’d still prefer to see it.
While the MMR can cause drama, it could also enrich a grown up community.
Every discussion would get more value. F.e. if people are complaining about power ranger with the information of their mmr, we would be able to specify on which mmr this problem appear and therefore be better at solving it.

insanemaniac.2456:

Teutos.8620:

insanemaniac.2456:

if you volunteer for autobalance, you get a win

dont kittening cry about getting autobalanced because it doesnt matter unless you arent volunteering

If that would just be true…

f.e. you don’t get the daily profession win if you get swapped.

you get the rank points, dailies are just the devs trying to get more people to try new things. and while its been successful to an (small) extent, in general people are just finding the path of least resistance instead of adhering to the spirit of it.

Still, being on the winning team at the end of the match matters.

insanemaniac.2456:

if you volunteer for autobalance, you get a win

dont kittening cry about getting autobalanced because it doesnt matter unless you arent volunteering

If that would just be true…

f.e. you don’t get the daily profession win if you get swapped.

Lopez.7369:

downed another thief and engineer pretty much instantly. […] Yet when we stomped the thief, the engineer rallied.

Or the Engi just used ‘Toss Elixir R’ and you missed it.

Tamasan.6457:

Have you been in PvP anytime in the last 6 months or so? You keep the look of your gear. You keep your weapons.

^This.
Your character skill has the equipment style he/she got.

For the RP: Your character is still the same, he/she just entered a strange portal to the mists for whatever reason you want it to be. Maybe he things that that he can that way influence the history of the battle of kyhlo. Maybe he just want’s to gain experience with combat; maybe it is some kind of honor for him like being a gladiator.

For the stats: If all players where not on the same level, there would not be a fair pvp. We need all players to start with the same options.
To not have to farm a special equipment peace (f.e. a new amulet from a high level raid) to get an advantage in pvp is the best part of gw2 (right next to the combat system).

Treeoflife.4031:

What do you mean that lava tomb competes with burning precision?

He means you can’t skill both.
You can select three traits in the fire line, #8 and #12 are both stronger, so this leaves the first column open: #4 ‘Burning Precision’ or #1 ‘Lava Tomb’.

It seems to be lag related.

Basically they are not lying down on the location shown ingame. They can still be killed if you find the real location.

btw: They can’t be rezzed too, so also a disadvantage.

ThFH.6048:

Fighting them is nearly impossible

I understand you, who needs a challenge in PvE?

If we were not allowed to use it developers would have probably changed it.

Yes, it should have been changed. F.e. they should have given the mobs stealth detection. But who cares? It is PvE, it really does not matter if the players are able to finish the path 5 minutes earlier….

So you agree with OP and with me that there should be soem kind of differentiation in PvP and PvE balance since it are two different game modes.

I agree, that the best would be to have more differences. But in the end I still don’t understand why PvE-players complain about balance… god’s sake it is PvE…

ThFH.6048:

and in some dungeons ‘skipping’ or stealth is a main part of the its dungeon design

So, you are complaining, that you can’t abuse the stealth mechanic any more and actually have to fight your way through the dungeon, how it was originally designed to?

So yes there is a serious concern that the stronghold mode will affect PvE builds and thus how the game works in PvE.

PvE balance is on a complete different level than tpvp. It just does not matter in PvE if a skill does 10% more damage or less, or has 5 seconds more CD or not.

Deniara Devious.3948:

*I predict we will see similar builds seen in WvWvW small scale roaming, *

No we won’t. Because on the opposite to WvW we have a real competition in SPvP.

Due to the fact, that you don’t have a match making system in WvW you will face people from all skill-level, therefore too many people actually think their build is viable or good, but actually only works in hot-join like environments.

From the first preview for me it feels like there will be a big 5v5 to get the secondary objective hero to spawn for your side; his buff seemed pretty strong.

Maybe some kind of Sanctuary/Stability stacking to ensure the buff for your own team?

First, try it out.
AFTER that, we can talk about what we like, and what we don’t. I’m sure a lot of the game elements are up for discussion IF it is constructive and well-argued.

Personally I don’t think PvE Elements are a knock-out-factor IF they don’t get out of hand (keep in mind the pve elements in the popular moba games seems to be just fine for their players).

I agree, I think this is significant.

But I think we first need to get more infos about the specializations before getting the devs to answer pvp specific questions and before worrying.

Well, maybe I’m wrong, and at least they’ll tell us about their balance philosophy

My questions:

• Regarding supply: Are you slowed down while carrying supply? Is the distance from movement enhancing effects like ride the lightning reduced while carrying supply? Are you able to use the portal while carrying supply?

• Regarding Lord: How many players do you need to actually kill the lord? How strong is he compared to the foefire lords?

• Regarding Doors: How strong are they? How long would it f.e. take a gs berserker warrior to kill the door? Are you only able to take it down with the help of the skritts? Can the treb hit the doors?

• Regarding Archers: How many are spawned spawned for one supply? How many archers to you need to take down the guards on their own?

• Regarding Guards: Are they resetting (full healing) once out of combat?

Since the last official info we got was, that they are testing currently everything between 5vs5 to 10vs10 I really doubt that this information is accurate. Probably up for discussion till the stronghold-scene takes off with the first successful tournaments.

(But I still hope it will be 5vs5).

From my personal TPvP perspective:

The overall objective should be to have best balanced game.

Problem 1: Core Traits
Do we currently really have a choice, where to put our trait points? To a certain extend yes, but there remain some core traits, we can never get rid of. F.e. if you want to play as a shatter mesmer, you have to pick ‘Deceptive Evasion’.
Specially for new players this adds to the complexity, because they first need to discover this core traits. Without them, they’ll for sure not have as much as fun in a pvp match as without them.

Problem 2: Build diversity / Supporting different play styles
Most professions have one to-go build, at the maximum two.
Since every trait is open for every play style, we don’t have the option to change specific traits for one play style f.e. berserker shatter without also influencing every other playstyle f.e. condition shatter or soldier phantasm. Is the turret damage from an engineer fine when playing berserker, but while playing defensive too high?

Problem 3: Not knowing what the opponent is playing
If you know what your opponents are playing, it gives you an advantage. Is your opponent playing power ranger or condition? Is the ele fresh air? (If you are not playing with a 5-man-premade it would also help to know what your teammates are playing).
Counter-play is already happening, and the only other option to prevent that, is to completely deny the knowledge against which professions your are playing. While this is a viable option, it does not work for the tournaments. We have seen in the latest tournament player changing to thief to counter-pick mesmer.
Personally I think this should remain a viable option, but should be extended further to include the rough knowledge of the opponents playstyle, to give you the option to change profession / traits / utilities if needed (maybe pick up anohter condi remove?).

Suggestion
The first time I heard about specializations I hoped they would solve this problem.
Every profession should have to first choose between different playstyles.
F.e. a Necromancer could choose between a condition-heave terror mancer; a minion-master; a well-summoner; a shroud-warrior; or maybe a support focused dark medic.
After selecting the specialization he still has access to some trait he can choose from. But they are balanced specifically for a certain playstyle in mind.

Thank you for sharing! Really appreciate the effort you put in!

Cmon, use the formatting properly. Not readable.

I see, that I can’t convince you. Stay in your QQ-world, and be happy there. I know better.

BlackBeard.2873:

I had asked this in a stream before, and the consensus seemed to be that temple wasn’t being played b/c they still hadn’t figured out a bug where somebody full-caps the buffs but they aren’t properly awarded. That can completely throw a match, and would be horrible in a real for-$ tourney. I am not sure if they have worked out this bug yet, but I would hope they add it back when they get it figured out.

Last week the bug was still existing / not fixed.

Mogar.9216:

lol I’m ranked 75 right now and 50% solo Q win rate may not be the best but I like to see you do better.

So, you have no clue, how the current system works. Please take a look in the pvp forum for more information.

You can only back up your argument with nothing but words

I did back it up with a lot of examples, please go think about them.

and a ranked example which I countered with my own rank.

Your own rank means nothing. Please go to the pvp forum, and inform yourself how the current system works.

The ONLY people who can create a new meta are guys like Helseth and maybe Subcutie. They’ll win against us regardless what they are playing. If they choose to play condition, just wait, and everyone else will follow.

The facts I presented you are examples from other professions, where exactly the same happened. Since you recently started playing, this might be something new to you, but EXACTLY the same happend with every other profession.
Only Bullet Punch played berserker medidation guard successfully at a top level. Then Fraelina and Tage followed, and now almost every guard you face is using their trait setup.

If we loose, the build must not work, and since the few top players are not using it, it must be bad. Better continue QQing and not trying to get better ourselves!
You are only limiting yourself.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

I am using a Greatsword. I hit it with Whirling Wrath, then I used Symbol of Wrath, then an auto-attack chain. It lost about 10% of its HP after the 3rd hit of my autoattack chain.

Are you sure, you selected the right amulet in the PvP equipment window?
Maybe you were playing with rabid or settler^^

Mogar.9216:

Your logic is total backwards. You can’t argue that because other classes have build diversity therefore mesmers are fine.

My argument is, that thinking shatter is the only viable build might also just be purely the own perception, and does not rest upon objective facts.

The other professions I mentioned had the same problem.
Not a long time ago offguards were very rare, most players argued that only shout-bunker is viable.
You can basically see that with all professions.
Ele: Most players though only Cele D/D was viable, who has thought about staff, D/F or even S/F fresh air?

We want diversity , we want to play different builds. But the fact is no one plays condi mesmer in pvp means whatever Anet is doing doesn’t work.

No, it just means, the players (including myself) who have tried it out were not good enough. Or the team composition in which they have tried it out was not suitable.

Well I also don’t play shatter and I’m top 100 on leaderboard.

No, you are not.
Your current rank (195) on the ladder does not matter at all, since the current ladder is a farm-ladder. You could also be at the bottom end of the MMR and just holding your 50% win chance and farming points, we just don’t know.
Prior Dec the 16th where you were primary ranked by your MMR you were not even in the top 1000 in NA.

Mogar.9216:

imo the problem is Anet refuse to see us as a spike damage class,

We are already a spike-damage profession, and we are in a good place with that.
Shatter does not need any buffs.

everything they have done is to push us into more condi CC class . It simply does not work because our main form of defense is NOT getting hit where the real condi cc classes like engis and necros have hp and toughness/armor as defense.

So, if it currently does not work, why should arenanet not push that further?
I like it, that they are only doing small adjustments to not overbuff condi-mesmer.

Last night a berserker medidation guard and a beserker lb ranger both qualified for the WTS. Not long ago many people would have said, that both are not on par with ele and engi. Zoose still played fresh air, and did great, even tho they lost in the end.

I am using my own mantra-shatter variation, and I’m doing fine.
Nieslysze on EU always plays some kind of strange defense support build, really hard to kill him, he holds a point and still supports his group. He always played on the Top 300 of TeamQ and SoloQ, I’m sure with the new system his MMR is still high.

There are still enough non-meta mesmer variations that are viable. Most of the time, the problem can be found between the screen and the chair, and not in the build options.

Well, I hope most elements of the gamemode are up for discussion.

But to be able to tell, which elements are fun to play with and which are not, we have to first be able to play the map properly. We also have to give the map design a chance, and see if we just need to adapt before crying for changes.

That’s probably only because you have new MMR, and therefore right next to the #HoTHype-Newcomers.

mbh.8301:

If buddy gets the same number of points through a better win percentage then it means that person is actually earning more points per match. This is how I came to the question.

It still does not mean he is a better player.

Here are some extreme examples:
Player 1 is a really good player but he only has a 50% win rate, since half of the time, he is loosing against Abjured (#1 guild NA).

Player 2 is not a good player with a mesmer, and has therefore very low mmr. Now he players shout-warri and can carry his team, and farm other low rated players, now he has a high win chance, till the mmr adjusts.

Without the MMR, we just don’t know where you stand.