Guild Wars 2

I think what you’ll see is these thumpers will cause fissures all over Tyria. These fissures will cause some sort of magical disturbance, possibly supercharging all the local flora and fauna. So you’ll be fighting hordes of veteran/champion goats and harpees and sunflowers.

Then you’ll have to destroy the thumpers which will be guarded by a mix of clockwork/dredge/aetherblades.

There will also be quests to destroy the dredge/clockworks that are going to repair the thumpers you destroyed previously.

All of this will be served up in standard GW2 mega-zerg fashion.

Somewhere in all this, Scarlet will begin tainting the ley line magic using the toxins she whipped up in the Nightmare tower, and you’ll have to stop that. Again, this will be served up in standard GW2 mega-zerg fashion.

For the grand finale, you’ll have to go into some instance (perhaps the Crucible of Eternity) to stop Scarlet from totally destroying magic for good. That’s where she’ll pull some whacko surprise out and stop the party cold. Then Scarlet will pull off her stunt, but instead of destroying magic, she’ll send the elder dragons into maximum overdrive. Suddenly 2, maybe 3, elder dragons surface, kill Scarlet and destroy the dungeon, then proceed to begin to tear Tyria apart.

…To be continued in Guild Wars 2: SuperCoolExpansionName (SCEN)

GW2: SCEN goods and bads

Good:
– Epic battle with 3 elder dragons
Bad:
– fights will be more on-rails than Zhaitan

Good:
– mounts!
Bad:
– all the Asura Gates are broken

Good:
– new lands, enemies and quests!
Bad:
– all horribly broken and won’t be fixed for a year. Also, existing quests will be broken too.

Good:
– old gods will return in your time of need
Bad:
– old gods have horrible AI and wander off to kill rabbits
– Also, old gods want back-pay from when they were let go

Dragons wake up
dragons trash planet
dragons sleep
planet repopulates
magic, magic everywhere
gets out of hand,
Dragons wake up….

I’m guessing Scarlet caught a glimpse of all the futures of Tyria in front of her, and decided she liked none of them. There are 2 doors in front of her, so she whipped out a sawzall and is making a window.

My guess is she’s trying to disrupt the flow of magic in Tyria. If she disrupts/destroys it, the dragons will not rise and the dragon-destroying cycle will be permanently broken.

I’m going to go out even further on a limb and say that she’s going to succeed, at least partially. However, I think one or more of the elder dragons will suddenly rise to stop her.

That would segue into an expansion featuring 2-3 of the elder dragons.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

wow why zero score? O_O

0 warriors.

Josh Davis.6015:

We should have a fix for this included in the next update, barring any complications.

which will be….

when?

Mega doesn’t support older browsers (at all). Is there a version of this anywhere else?

The advantage is greater than many people think.

The real issue is the advantage is greater than it should be (i.e. none).

This is a boilerplate mm build. Nothing new.

It’s a good bunker build, but doesn’t provide any good team support.
Try using ConCon, axe and Barb amulet. Still strong and provides good burst. Charge+axe2+WH4 does great burst and sets up an opponent for a team kill.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

It would be nice to see a community built list that shows specs rated top>down for each class and role in all areas of play. This kind of feedback is really helpful for our team.

Agreed. It would also be nice to have the PvP balance team acknowledge that warriors are overpowered in their current state and that the problem can be directly attributed to overbuffing Healing Signet.

I don’t know how constructive any lists would be at the moment simply because warriors are keeping many builds/professions down at the moment.

I agree with OP. No reason for 4second reveal still.

It should be at least 10 seconds.

Do 400 DPS against a warrior = full health
Do 400 DPS against any other class = down 400hp/sec

Therefore: Warriors are unable to perform basic reasoning.

Coulter.2315:

sorrow.2364:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

what are you talking about? my warrior still gets destroyed by heavy burst damage (if i can’t dodge them) and massive conditions overload (if i can’t remove them) easily.

Perhaps, you should use some skills sometimes.

If you put this in that way, then yes, if you’re standing still doing nothing Healing Signet does not makes you win the encounter. We all base our statements on the assumption that even a complete noob use some skills sometimes, probably you aren’t on that level yet.

I’m pretty sure this Deimos Tel Arin creature is a troll, should just avoid it.

Agreed. Either a troll or very, very bad player. 400hp/sec + Adrenal Health isn’t OP bro. I tried to solo Tequatl and it killed me so it’s ok.

That must have been because your games were all blowouts

I don’t think we’ll see new weapons anytime soon.

We’ll probably see an additional weapon slot option for existing weapons. For example:

Scepter: Blood Curse, Grasping Dead and your choice of:

• Feast of Corruption
• NEW_SCEPTER3

Dalanor.5387:

Mobility only matters in WvW. In most PvE content mobility is pointless and in sPvP you have point capture (and you shouldnt go to far point anyway).

This is untrue. Mobility is extremely important in sPvP.

Necromancer: has a chance to fizzle.

The Good

• fixes to S/D thieves
• buffs to mesmers
• new heals
• more incentive to PvP

The Bad

• most of the heals are underpowered. I suspect this was intentional, but would like to see an update soon
• Diamond Skin and more passive play

The Missing

• fixes to warriors, specifically Healing Signet and its 100% passive nature

Condi necros won’t beat warriors typically.

That being said, warriors are in a deplorable state in this game, and the lack of attention to the problem speaks volumes on behalf of ArenaNet. The problem stems primarily from Healing Signet, though the Longbow special needs attention as well.

No class should be freely given so much sustainability without a counter.

In the meantime, I’d suggest you switch to MM necro with Death Nova + Corrupt Boon (or Well of Darkness). That build is fairly successful against warriors

Nice video Blu. Watching the video, one thing that really becomes apparent is how much better you have become at shoutcasting.

Good stuff.

Josh Davis.6015:

Smiley.5376:

We should have a thread like this for each profession sepparatly aswell

a lot has been said but i think profession-oriented feedback threads could be an excellent next step into letting arenanet know what we think

could be extremely helfull for the balance team !

We’ll be doing something very similar to that next year. Probably around the time we get the new profession balance forum.

Players have been doing this for a year now, in the individual profession forums. However, I’ve seen very little done by the ArenaNet developers to capitalize on this.
Why will will things be different now with a new subforum? Could the pvp balance team not look at the profession subforums?

Silentshoes.1805:

TChalla.7146:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Ludus Rex.1562:

Additionally, some of the initial complains were about losses caused by relatively new players, and I was just pointing out that if you are very good player (well above average), then tightening up the skill range in the match making system will result in more losses, not fewer.

The games would be closer, and more competitive, which I would certainly welcome, but for problems like people raging because they lost 8 in a row? Well, there’d actually be more of that (for high skilled players) not less. Any proposal to limit the amount of time that you (presumably a good player) have to spend playing with n00bs, will not help you in any way, shape, or form, for what you’re calling “the now”. Do you have an alternate proposal?

This is simply untrue. Stop spreading misinformation. Stop and think before you post.

It’s not misinformation. If you were playing with and against other players with the exact same skill level as you, your win/loss ratio would be 50/50. On top of that, the probability of losing 8 in a row increases as you get to the same skill level. It’s simple mathematics. The fact that you can’t see that doesn’t make it wrong.

I can see that the probability of losing 8 straight increases when a very good player gets placed on teams against other very good players for every game.

Because before, they had terrible players on the opposite teams that they could easily dominate.

I can see that logic.

MMR team making is fixed and ordered. Introducing one new player among the 9 veterans will nearly guarantee the team which has that new player will lose.

Since the player pool is small, players tend to play multiple matches consecutively, and the MMR matchmaking is ordered based upon that MMR ranking, the probability you will continue to get that player on your team is much higher than 50/50. So you are much more likely to have streaks of 8 wins or 8 losses with a new player thrown into the mix than without.

I’ve found the matchmaking to be equally poor in team queue, but the maps and rewards superior.

That sounds good. Please keep in mind these two teams are part of what the typical player refers to as “PvP”. There aren’t separate “PvP infrastructure” and “Skills and Balance” subforums, just one: structured PvP

selfi.8709:

Hello I haven’t been playing gw2 for very long but I started to do more and more sPvP because I really enjoy it especially the 5v5 solo arena mode but I’m a bit confused as how to play this mode correctly because it happened multiple times that my teammates said stuff like “why are u here” or “don’t follow me” “go away” etc.
So I would like to ask is there a meta or some general tactic in this game mode? I have no problem with fighting itself I usually beat anyone in 1v1 even 1v2 sometimes but I need advices regarding tactics.. (I play condition mesmer mostly)

edit: If anyone wonders, yes, I read the “new to spvp” and according to it I am probably this category: Far-Point Assaulter but I still find myself in situations where I’m not sure what to do.

Roll a warrior. Run around and smash faces.

The player base doesn’t differentiate between the PvP team and the balance team. To us, it’s all just “PvP”.

I’d suggest ArenaNet please refrain from a PvP ready-up that does not include the balance team.

Josh, I’m scratching my head on this. As someone who hosted those “State of the Game” streams, you know that players are just as, if not moreso, interested in balance changes than rewards.

Why would you put together a PvP developer stream without the people in the room who can speak to balance? I mean, if those guys went on Christmas break, that’s cool – I just would have preferred you postponed the stream until they came back.

Please put the video up on youtube for those of us behind twitchless firewalls – thanks

Gather the mats until they announce the new set of legendaries.

Bazooka that shoots butterflies…

…of death.

Mesmer: On-demand three-way action – and a spare set of hands to hold the handycam.

What happened to Justin’s backspace key that Evan swallowed?

Did he eventually pass it? If so, did he put it back on Justin’s keyboard?

Was it really the backspace key, or just some kittenty piece of corn?

Evan Lesh.3295:

The system is working as intended. You left 3 times all on December 20th. (time zones may vary).

Evan, I heard you swallowed Justin’s backspace key.

Did you eventually pass it? If so, did you put it back on Justin’s keyboard?
If you didn’t pass it, I think you can probably just rummage around and use an old corn kernel instead.

Maybe we can find out during today’s live stream!

That would totally suck. However, I don’t think the system warns you prior to getting the debuff. I know I had to go AFK during a match not too long ago and when I came back my toon was in the Mists, but I didn’t see any kind of notification saying I was booted, or that I would potentially get a debuff.

Most guys I would figure were probably bull-kittening everyone, but I think this guy’s legit. Either that or he’s been planning this troll post since April, since that’s when he was last complaining about his connection.

Hyperion.4638:

remove the skyhammer map from competitive solo games.

Only 2,837 more posts before they remove it.

Same thing happened to me. I think I fraps’d it, too.

Did you find the Dopefish with the large treasure chest?

Verdelet Arconia.6987:

I doubt u get 2 days of dishonour debuff for just 1 DC. Either the system made a mistake or the system executed its decision based on something that you’re not telling us.

I think this poor guy is just an unfortunate victim of the situation. I checked his post history and he’s been complaining about random disconnects for months.

I’d open a ticket and see if they can lift that debuff. In the future just avoid tpvp when you’re connection is feeling choppy.

That build looks like it’s intended to be a side bunker / group support. However, that means it may likely run into a roamer thief or warrior, or a far point spirit ranger or MM necro. How does this build handle those?

I was playing a MM necro earlier and ran into a signet bunker mesmer and beat him down pretty handily. I don’t know what his build was.

Filtering seems broken atm

Lyssa Runes

• are they being looked at? They are currently far superior to any other runeset.

New Game Modes

• Previously the developers at ArenaNet were complaining that balancing between 3 different game types – PvP, WvW and PVE was very challenging and separating skills would make the job even more challenging.
• If you are adding a new PvP game mode, you’re essentially creating a 4th game type. Given that balancing 3 game types was too hard, what additional sacrifices will we see with the introduction of a 4th?

Here was another, this time out of team queue:

The smart guy left before the match was over.

Ludus Rex.1562:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Justin ODell.9517:

Ludus Rex.1562:

Getting rid of noobs can’t help a good player win more, at all, ever, but tightening up the matchmaking system COULD make for more competitive (and potentially more interesting/exciting) games.

I just wanted to highlight this point. I strongly suggest people keep that in mind when discussion matchmaking.

You sure about that Justin? Think about how a good player may select a build, skills and utilities which synergize well with more experienced players, but not as well with inexperienced players.

Venom shares, lockdown/interrupt builds – heck even knowing how Illusion of Life works – I used to run Portal + IoL in solo Q as a mesmer, but it can be a waste of a slot (sometimes 2), depending on who you are teamed with.

A condi-heavy necromancer is very powerful, but only if his team knows enough to give him lots of support and cover. Otherwise that condi necromancer suddenly becomes a hindrance to the team instead of an asset.

Right, the part I keep trying to explain is that any benefit that you and your team might experience by converting 4 potentially bad players, to 4 seasoned pros, will be a GREATER benefit to the opposing team, who will be converting 5 potentially bad players, to seasoned pros.

It absolutely does not matter what benefit you think you will attain by getting more good players on your team, the fact is, since your team has 4 blank slots and the opponent’s team has 5 blank slots, they get MORE of this benefit. You’ve accused me of looking at things in a vacuum, when I just keep telling you how these changes will effect you RELATIVE to how it effects the opposing team. I think you might actually be looking at the benefits in a vacuum.

You don’t substitute 9 noobs with 9 veterans. You’d substitute 1,2,3 and, rarely, 4.
MMR matching is not random: it’s specifically ordered. Player skill level is not uniform – it is likely to be closer to normal or rayleigh.

Justin ODell.9517:

Ludus Rex.1562:

Getting rid of noobs can’t help a good player win more, at all, ever, but tightening up the matchmaking system COULD make for more competitive (and potentially more interesting/exciting) games.

I just wanted to highlight this point. I strongly suggest people keep that in mind when discussion matchmaking.

You sure about that Justin? Think about how a good player may select a build, skills and utilities which synergize well with more experienced players, but not as well with inexperienced players.

Venom shares, lockdown/interrupt builds – heck even knowing how Illusion of Life works – I used to run Portal + IoL in solo Q as a mesmer, but it can be a waste of a slot (sometimes 2), depending on who you are teamed with.

A condi-heavy necromancer is very powerful, but only if his team knows enough to give him lots of support and cover. Otherwise that condi necromancer suddenly becomes a hindrance to the team instead of an asset.

Ludus Rex.1562:

Thedenofsin.7340:

This is simply untrue. Stop spreading misinformation.

Repeating that something is untrue does not make it untrue. Why don’t you try deconstructing my argument and explaining WHY it’s untrue, if this is how you feel?

It’s not really debatable, it’s just a fact. My impulse is to explain the reason again, but I feel like I’ve already done that and you’re just choosing not to try and understand it.

Fine. Here’s why it is untrue: you are evaluating the problem in a vacuum. The reality is that you are not taking into account the fact that the number of players is finite and players tend to play multiple games in a row, which means the player pool is not random at all. You also aren’t taking build synergy into account.

Poll needs a “bacon” option.

Ludus Rex.1562:

Additionally, some of the initial complains were about losses caused by relatively new players, and I was just pointing out that if you are very good player (well above average), then tightening up the skill range in the match making system will result in more losses, not fewer.

The games would be closer, and more competitive, which I would certainly welcome, but for problems like people raging because they lost 8 in a row? Well, there’d actually be more of that (for high skilled players) not less. Any proposal to limit the amount of time that you (presumably a good player) have to spend playing with n00bs, will not help you in any way, shape, or form, for what you’re calling “the now”. Do you have an alternate proposal?

This is simply untrue. Stop spreading misinformation.

I tested this earlier, and I believe Necromancer talent, “Necromatic Corruption” (Death Magic XII) just doesn’t work.

Josh,

What kind of questions are you looking for? High level? Low level? General? Specific?

I’ll toss several questions down covering all categories:

New Heal Feedback

• How has the new heal feedback been?
• Are there any updates coming to the new heals?
• Having tried the new Mesmer heal, I found the illusion requirement to be a nice way to add an active component to the passive heal. However, I found Signet of the Ether very lacking when compared to Healing Signet. Having it tick every second would be better.

Warriors:

• Are warriors in a good place? There is a lot of strife on the forums regarding healing signet, condi immunity and longbow AoE fire fields. Are you keeping an eye on this? Personally I think the 100% passive healing results in no real counterplay. Right now I see warriors are so strong they are keeping other professions out of the meta. Mid-bunker, side bunker, roamer – it seems warriors are dominating these roles.

Matchmaking

• How are the matchmaking updates progressing?
• Do you have an idea on how to combat “ELO hell”?
• To use the baseball analogy, will there be something like a ‘farm league’ for pvp players? (tiered access)

Miscellaneous
These two bugs keep certain builds (and playstyles) from being viable. Can these get fixed?
Mesmer:

• Phantasmal Warden was broken as of the last patch (does not move/act oftentimes)
  Necromancer:
• Necromancer Grandmaster, Necromatic Corruption (Death Magic XII) does not work
• And, as always, necro pets despawn with Moa

Most Importantly: Development Process

• Has ANet made any changes to their development process to allow for PvP balance changes to be turned around more quickly? The absolute least fun thing about this game is how one profession tends to remain broken for 4+ months at a time, which is just not acceptable. I made this point long ago: if a person can undergo open heart surgery and fully recover from it in less time than it takes ArenaNet to push out a couple of small balance changes, then there’s something wrong with the development process.

Ashanor.5319:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Ashanor.5319:

Thedenofsin.7340:

TRoopEr.5364:

I will repeat.

People whine about warriors because it is way to easy to play and way to easy to stomp bad players. And majority(vaste majority) of gw2 spvp playerbase rightnow and past 3 month are bad.

remove kitten lyssa from game and all happy.

Warriors have as much mobility as a thief, the best health regen in the game, (and it’s passive!), the second best access to stability, heavy armor, some of the best condition removal in the game, and an AoE fire field that can permanently cover an entire node.

Give any profession that much capability and they’ll WTFstomp everyone else.

It’s dumb.

Oh yeah, those 30/30/30/30/30 warriors who use Greatsword/Sword/Sword/Longbow are insane! Second best access to stability? We have two stability utility that people actually use, most builds don’t take them both. One is a 60 second cooldown (48 traited – which most builds also don’t trait) the other is a 40 second cooldown. Both are 8 second durations.

We have good condition removal, I will give you that. Do you know why we were given good condition removal? It’s because we couldn’t stand in a group fight without melting before it was added.

Warrior already took a bunch of nerfs last patch. It is ridiculous that you bad players are STILL complaining and making up magical perfect builds with every weapon to claim warrior has everything. I’m surprised you didn’t also claim warrior has overpowered cc all in the same build. Might want to add that next time!

0/0/30/30/10 -sword/horn + lb + celestial + Lyssa.

The bad players aren’t complaining. The bad ones are all playing warrior.

Yep, crap build that I see very few players running. I will give you this, it’s good at duels and that is mostly where I see it, dueling servers. We all know dueling servers are serious business, let’s balance the game around them!

Should i remind you that every top players @tpvp thinks there is a problem with warrioirs , all comeptitive team left this game.

Top teams leaving was happening long before warrior getting buffs, and most of remainder left because of the condi spam meta, not because of warriors. lol

That crap build can hold side and support mid better than any build I know of.

EverythingEnds.4261:

Why skyhammers is bad:

Bunkers, Stability and Knockbacks are an important part of every PvP map in GW2.
However, in Skyhammer they are ven more important, as you not only can get pushed from the point, you also can get pushed into you death.
In Addition, you also have basicly a “4th capture point” aka the canon.
So knockbacks, aoes and the other stuff nobody likes become more important, again.

The next question is: Are there actual “Skyhammer builds”?
To be honest, I haven’t done researches about this, but as far as I think, Maybe some classes might change a weapon or a utlity skill, but not their build.
But in the end, skyhammer and the hole knockback etc. stuff make some of the meta builds even stronger as they already are (on other maps), while making other professions even worse.

Exactly. Stability and knock backs were designed to hold/push point control, not instakill

Ashanor.5319:

Thedenofsin.7340:

TRoopEr.5364:

I will repeat.

People whine about warriors because it is way to easy to play and way to easy to stomp bad players. And majority(vaste majority) of gw2 spvp playerbase rightnow and past 3 month are bad.

remove kitten lyssa from game and all happy.

Warriors have as much mobility as a thief, the best health regen in the game, (and it’s passive!), the second best access to stability, heavy armor, some of the best condition removal in the game, and an AoE fire field that can permanently cover an entire node.

Give any profession that much capability and they’ll WTFstomp everyone else.

It’s dumb.

Oh yeah, those 30/30/30/30/30 warriors who use Greatsword/Sword/Sword/Longbow are insane! Second best access to stability? We have two stability utility that people actually use, most builds don’t take them both. One is a 60 second cooldown (48 traited – which most builds also don’t trait) the other is a 40 second cooldown. Both are 8 second durations.

We have good condition removal, I will give you that. Do you know why we were given good condition removal? It’s because we couldn’t stand in a group fight without melting before it was added.

Warrior already took a bunch of nerfs last patch. It is ridiculous that you bad players are STILL complaining and making up magical perfect builds with every weapon to claim warrior has everything. I’m surprised you didn’t also claim warrior has overpowered cc all in the same build. Might want to add that next time!

0/0/30/30/10 -sword/horn + lb + celestial + Lyssa.

The bad players aren’t complaining. The bad ones are all playing warrior.

TRoopEr.5364:

I will repeat.

People whine about warriors because it is way to easy to play and way to easy to stomp bad players. And majority(vaste majority) of gw2 spvp playerbase rightnow and past 3 month are bad.

remove kitten lyssa from game and all happy.

Warriors have as much mobility as a thief, the best health regen in the game, (and it’s passive!), the second best access to stability, heavy armor, some of the best condition removal in the game, and an AoE fire field that can permanently cover an entire node.

Give any profession that much capability and they’ll WTFstomp everyone else.

It’s dumb.

Ludus Rex.1562:

Thedenofsin.7340:

What math? You have provided 0 mathematical evidence. None.

So I guess you don’t understand that 4 players of variable skill level, plus you, is less variance in total than 5 players of variable skill (the opposing team)?

Even if player skill was only 50% of the game, and the other 50% was the quality of the team composition, the enemy team would be in the exact same boat regarding variance in the quality of composition.

So if team composition quality ranges from 1 to 50 (arbitrary scale that we’ll use since I’m now humoring you and pretending that composition is as high as 50% of the determining factor), and each unknown player has a random skill level of 1 to 10 (you initiated this thread be complaining about bad players, so presumably you think there’s a skill level factor and some player have too little skill to be useful), then your team should still win more than it loses, if your level of skill, the non-changing factor, is a 10. You’ll end up with more wins than losses over time.

Player skill influences fights, and fights impact the outcome of the game. You can’t sherk responsibility for your ratio unless you make the claim that there’s no skill involved at all. The fact that a game has luck, does not mean that it’s entirely luck based. Again, this is what bad players tell themselves so they can sleep at night.

This type of self delusion is also what makes poker more popular than chess, because when you lose at chess, you know it’s your fault, but when you lose at poker, you just got unlucky, right? And everytime you’ve lost a match ever, your team just wasn’t any good and you got unlucky, right? Have a tissue.

No, poker is more popular than chess because poker is appealing to idiots and drunks. And there are more idiots in the world than intelligent people. Sadly, this thread makes me start to feel GW2 is appealing to the same crowd as poker does.

Pulling numbers out of thin air does not justify your stance. When I said math, I was referring to something you could substantiate, not just stringing together digits from 0-9, which is precisely what you did.

Your basic argument is that skill level plays some part in the outcome of the game, but you cannot substantiate how much that factors into the equation. So you made numbers up.
Pulling numbers out of your kitten does not an argument make.