Guild Wars 2

Gewd.8125:

If the system was working correctly it shouldn’t make someone fluctuate from r200 to 85% on a regular basis.

There definitely is something very wrong with that. It seems team Q (even as as solo player) gives me far better results than Solo Q. In Solo, usually I’ll either win or lose in steaks of 5-6 games and those games will be absolutely one-sided, like 500 – 200 or so. Whereas in Team Q games seem to be much less frustrating and much closer as well. Not sure exactly why it is such…

Anyway, great to hear about those ladders. Excited to see how things unfold. Personally, I like the idea of registered team, but you need to still be able to swap people in/out, not so much like in WoW (maybe they changed it, only played until Burning Crusade).

EDIT: Agreed it would be nice to see one’s MMR. One could have a Solo Rating and a Team Rating, and then the team’s overall rating be decided by the average rating of all the team’s players. I think that would work well.

Well, I think I had around 100 but I’ve been using them all the time since last patch, since glory has become somewhat useful now, down to 40 or so. Just think it’s kittened to get those stupid items that I’ll never use for PvP now that Glory finally has some use…

Vigorous Precision nerf sucks a ton. Pretty much only defensive ability for non-bunker builds.

Why the kitten does it give repair canisters, coins, trading post express or whatever when I don’t need any of this in PvP, instead of the Glory Boosters that it used to give?!

Well, I played a bunch of games tonight and although they didn’t all go quite gloriously (stupid teammates, haha) I seemed to have a lot more success in being self-reliable. The two specs that worked best were basically the same build (0/5/30/30/5) with AH (great tool, really), but I just switched between Clerics Amulet for full bunker and Berserker’s Amulet for some more DPS. With Zerk I still had around 2.5k armor, 20k hp, with like 45% crit and 45% crit dmg (& 550 heal with mace). So it allowed me to be extremely versatile and with the crazy amount of dodges I can do, I had great success. And with just a switch of amulet I can have a 100% bunker build, which was extremely fun as well, outhealing 2-3 attackers hehe

Anyway, thanks for the help guys, definitely appreciated. Will try again some more tomorrow.

Cheers!

Well many thanks guys! I definitely want to keep my more bunkerish/support build, with shouts, but I hadn’t thought of going deep enough for Altruistic Healing. Very good idea which I will definitely try, maybe it will give me some extra health which will help me outlast the opponent. I am definitely not trying to get a high DPS build here – I have my Necro for that – but if I could make a build which does enough dmg to actually down someone, even if that means my basic strat is to simply outlive my enemy, that’s fine too. I think I’ll also give Scepter/Focus instead of Mace/Shield, just to see how it works. We’ll see if the trade-off for surviability/support is worth it!

Again many thanks and if anyone has any other suggestions/ideas please feel free to add !

Hey fellow Guardians,

I am currently playing a strange hybrid Hammer/Mace+Shield Guardian in PvP. I have found this build to be extremely successful in team play, providing great support, good surviability while still being able to deal some nice damage. I tried various specs and weapons before settling on this build and although it seems rarely used I found it works very well in team play.

Here is my current build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApeSlUgyCHFyKEfYFRuAbBVFiH2DMmxOepgiPE-TsAA2CtIySllLLTWyssZNsYZxEEA

Now, although this build works very well in team play as I said, I seem to have extreme difficulty 1v1’ing pretty much anyone. Range builds kite me extremely well (even if I ZE & RoW), melees simply outdps/outheal me and etc. Obviously I don’t lose all my 1v1’s but I’d say vs a similarly skilled opponent I will lose 80% of the time. I understand my build is perhaps more oriented towards team play but I was wondering if there is anything I can do to improve the 1v1 capacities of this build – aside from, obviously, playing better. I am definitely improving my understanding of the strengths & weaknesses of this build as I’ve just been playing it for a few days but I’d be curious to have input by other, perhaps more experienced Guardians.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks !

I don’t know why nobody mentioned Hammer guardians in Skyhammer. I absolutely despise this map, but I’ve been giggling myself out playing this class now. Pretty ridiculous how often I can just knock someone out instantly. Anyway, definitely kittened play, but I figured if I could at least get some sort of enjoyment from it…

I have no issues with Spirit Watch however… yeah, people are stupid if they’re all going for the orb but other than that… nothing new losing a map due to idiotic players.

Also, I’ve been getting much less 4v5 since the fix to deserter debuff (or whatever it’s called).

Only real issue with SoloQ is how powerless it feels. I swear, even if one tries their best, it’s almost impossible to carry a whole team of idiots. If just 1 or 2 players know what they’re doing, they have literally no chance of winning. Mostly frustrating due to that… Seems somehow the matchmaking is weird, not polished enough.

Suggestion on matchmaking:
- Needs to spread out classes more evenly across both teams.
- Also need to spread out good vs bad players more. A player’s rating needs to be affected at how well they perform in a game. I firmly believe getting more rank points should give you more rating at the end of the game (if that’s not already the case).
- Ideally, every player playing SoloQ should have around 48-52% win ratio, because teams should be as equal as possible. Now, it seems that the only way to move up the ranking ladder is to get a few lucky wins in a row…

I also think AI builds (and engi knockbacks) need some sort of nerf. Really frustrating to play vs spirit ranger/mm necro/mesmer, like 20 targets at a given point when 2-3 such classes are there…

Anyway, quite tired, may be a long post but hopefully it’ll be of some help.

Jumping in as well to say I absolutely despise this map. Even winning is frustrating as hell.

Great change ! Looking forward to the continuing improvements to PvP.

Dimglow.5489:

I am speaking as a pretty high end player with over 13,700 achievement points, 5 characters with 100% map, almost pvp rank 41 who has reached top 200 solo queue (though I have dropped recently playing staff ele) and never farmed a singly bit of rank/glory via Skyhammer. I also have a guild with people just like me except they positively refuse to PVP, even though they’d enjoy it. They don’t want to look like a noob and/or “waste their play time.”

First things first, the most rewarding thing that can be done to your PVP population is improve the population. It doesn’t matter how good or rewarding PVP is if no one is participating to bring value to the overall system.

To do this it is imperative that players be allowed to bring their appearances from PVE to PVP. I have countless friends who simply refuse to PVP because they refuse to self-identify as new players. Let’s be honest, when you join a PVP match and see someone in the starter gear they are usually easy targets. This identifies these players as instant easy targets who tend to get dogpiled and destroyed. This takes a highly impressionable player who already feels ignorant, vulnerable and embarrassed and piles another bad experience on top which is discrimination.

The fact of the matter is that cosmetic gear is not working as a PVP reward scheme. Cosmetic gear is about player identity. As soon as PVE players lose their appearance they lose their connection and they drop out of PVP like flies. Take the locker and make it universal.

That is step 1. Tear down the wall which isolates the playerbases and allow single unified identities.

Step 2 is giving PVP unique rewards that allow players to customize themselves in all game modes. Taking the existing Tribal armor or Rubric armor for example and making it cost a set amount of glory. Make this the equivalent of a PVP karma armor/equipment.

Add some kind of karma-esque vendors for glory spending. Add the equivalent of jewelry boxes. Include gold, karma, crafting materials and other cross-gameplay rewards as a way to channel glory into other game modes. In addition to these random boxes also bring in things like obsidian shards, ascended crafting materials and other end game progressable collectives. There are literally hundreds of options here. I’m not picky.

Make PVP matches into dynamic events. Each one should award significant experience (10-20% of a level minimum), gold and karma for participating in. Players may now level in PVP. Alternatively make these awards liquid so they can be passed to alts.

Now that you’ve mixed up the game modes enough that PVP is a continuum of the GW2 universe you can add PVP exclusive rewards to take back to PVE.

• A medal by your character name on any class you’ve earned your champion <class> title for.

AND/OR

• A PVP rank display that shows up by your PVE level.

• Launch a PVP season like the WvW season. Award serious achievements. This will cyclically keep players involved.

• Improve all other achievements in the PVP pane.

The simple truth is that for PVP to be appealing long term it has to plug into all of the other reward systems.

I like Guild Wars 2. I like to PVP. I like to PVE. I like to WvW. I like dungeons. I like fractals. I like my guild.

I can do all of those things. But when I go into pvp now and someone sees my world completion star or sees my achievement points I get “Oh boy a PVE scrub.”

When my guildmates see my /rank Tiger pop up I just get laughs.

Let’s bridge the gap Anet.

Nothing else to add.

Diminishing Returns are the lazy way of fixing things (ala WoW). They could simply fix this ridiculously broken class and spec. Heck, I run Spectral Armor and Spectral Walk (which give me 3x stun breaks – two from SW since I can tele out of stun) and those + Death Shroud are not enough to prevent warriors from cc-spamming me. Can’t even imagine those classes that run little or no stunbreaks… Obviously something is wrong.

I’m a bit puzzled by some of the answers here. I see a lot of replies asking to discuss rewards: I think rewards are an important part of sPvP that needs to be improved, but the most important reason we are doing sPvP is because we LIKE it. It’s important to keep things in perspective: if you do not enjoy your time in sPvP, you will not play it anymore. What makes your sPvP experience fun can differ but I think most will agree that balanced, interesting and skill-based play are a good basis. Therefore…

1. Balance (incl. more skill-based play & even fights for solo Q)
2. Rewards
3. Game Modes

Please change this asap. Don’t really think it’s a bad idea to add some holiday rewards to the normal PvP rewards, but switching them and removing what little reward we do get from sPvP? That’s downright ridiculous.

6. Thief: The main problem with thief in solo queue is that it simply cannot effectively hold points for any length of time. Thief has mediocre burst compared to some other classes and is not renowned for team support. It is a good class for back capping quickly, but other than that it can struggle taking down warriors and other classes in 1v1 fights. Shortbow is decent in team fights, but for solo queue, it is usually better to have a necromancer or engineer raining down condition death on the enemy from 1200 range instead of being extremely squishy at 900.

Mediocre burst?!

I don’t know which thiefs you’ve been fighting but they definitely are the highest burst class on my necro. I’ve been crit multiple times by 6-8k hits (just one hit, not like thousand blades or etc.) I agree they’re not the best class to defend at ALL but they are by far the best roaming class in my opinion. Seems if I am fighting 2v1 on a point and a good thief shows up, it can turn the tide of the battle in a matter of 2-3 seconds.

Agreed on the rest of the list.

I think this is a good proposition for PvP only. However I always thought that the downed state in itself was too annoying. I feel it’s a little bit unfair when, for example, Elementalists just have an ability to move around when Thiefs or Mesmers can go invisible. Or how Guardians can insta-AoE knockback everyone and Necroes have to cast a 1-2 sec fear (which 50% of the time is resisted or doesn’t land before finish-off). Engineers don’t have anything really fancy either. Just seems that it’s all not so well balanced.

To be honest I really like the idea of the downed state, but I think there should only be two abilities (1 – throw rock or whatever and 2 – heal while calling for help). But heh maybe just my opinion.

Caffynated.5713:

DPS builds in every PvP MMO lose to tanks. It’s by design.

You’re trading strong solo ability for the power to burst through healing and actually kill people. A tank sacrifices the damage output needed to kill a healer (bunkers in GW2), and in exchange they get the health and armor to outlast DPS.

This.

Rock / Paper / Scissors

No single class/build can win every 1v1 against everyone. As a thief, your counter is tank builds.

1. Legacy of the foefire
2. Khylo
3. Forest
4. Temple
5. Spirit Watch
6. Raid
7. Skyhammer

Edit: also WvW >>>>>>>>>> Alterac Valley, in any shape or form, even the old one. It was just a massive pointless zerg. With that said, AB > any of GW2’s pvp maps. kitten, I remember playing AB all day for many many days and never getting bored of it.

Hmmm, strange, I play a necro and my biggest counters are thiefs, signet wars and spirit rangers. I don’t play a thief so I can’t say exactly what they are doing, but they are constantly moving in/out of stealth and bursting my in short amount of times (heartseeker, backstab). I can beat kittenty thiefs pretty easily by just cc’ing them, but if they’re any good I can barely land a hit on them (dodge marks, heal in stealth, etc.)

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Hi,

I wanted to just touch base with everyone and say that we are looking into making a few changes to the Sky Hammer map layout. The goal of these changes is to preserve the overall feel of Sky Hammer(Positioning = good), but hope to relieve the spam knock backs and get kills feel. We are listening to everyone both in-game and on the forums. Thanks for the feedback and see you in-game.

Hugh “Nightmare” Norfolk

Thanks Hugh,

I agree with the idea that positioning should be one’s priority in Skyhammer is good. Honestly, I don’t even mind that the skyhammer is unavoidable, it makes it even more worthwhile to be controlled. The only thing that really annoys me is how you can be pulled, feared, knocked off the map and die instantly. If that would be removed, I think it’d be a great map.

I’m confident in your ability to improve this issue, hopefully you will do the right decisions in order to ensure a stable, competitive and balanced state of the game in every possible way.

I haven’t read all of the suggestions but I think in general easiest is best – some here are quite simply too complicated. Here’s how I would view it:

Queue pops: you have 1 minute to join, but game doesn’t start before, say, 90 or 120 seconds. If one or more player doesn’t join, the closest people to the median “estimated rating” in the queue are being called in.

Once the game is started, you can report someone as AFK and once reported (say, two votes), that person has 15 seconds to prove he is there, else he is kicked. Any kicked or leaving player should be stuck with a debuff which prevents them from queuing in tournament or solo Q for an increasing amount (which never resets, or say after 30 days of non-reported activity) – say 20 mins, 45 mins, 1 hour, 2 hours, 10 hours, 24 hours, etc.

I think this would be the most simple and effective way of preventing leavers and AFKers in tournament game, both solo and team.

Colin, thanks for your info. It’s great to see devs working on improving the game and not just by adding band-aid fixes. To be quite frank (and I know I’ll be stoned for this) but I quit the game back in October of last year and I’ve recently come back to play here and there and so far it’s been extremely pleasant doing sPvP, much more than it was at release. Solo Q and other improvements have really made it that much more fun (only downside being Skyhammer to be honest..) Looking forward to the other improvements.

AtoBoss.2906:

Maybe bring some stability and dont hang around the edges…

Thank you mister obvious. I do what I can to avoid this situation as best I can, but this map is too imbalanced / easily abused to have its place in a tournament matchup.

I don’t think anything needs to be said about this map. Completely ridiculous and imbalanced map. Some classes are absolutely overpowered (engi comes to mind), being able to throw people down the map in a matter of mere seconds. Not to mention the map is utterly frustrating to play.

Just remove it from the solo tournament pool and be done with it.

Fix found… it seems that putting the energy mode on “Battery Saving” even if it’s charged fixes the issue… If anyone else has this problem.

I think there are some good points but the most important one for me is “Increase penalty for leaving/afk’ing in tournament games.” Really ruins the experience of solo Q. And as some said above I think free to play sPvP would be quite ridiculous. Would really increase tremendously the amount of bot/spam, but I doubt Anet would do that anyway.

Just an update/bump in order to hopefully get some sort of answer: if the battery is at 100%, no problem. But if it’s any lower (even 99%) it will bug out. Basically, it keeps switching between battery and a/c power constantly (every half a second or so). If that can help, I am on an Asus ROG.

Yeah, the problem seems to be linked with how low the battery is. Now that the battery is full charged the problem has disappeared…

I will try posting in tech support. However, no, there is no keybind and I have never had this problem in the past on any other game nor Guild Wars 2.

So additional info: the problem only occurs when I am in-game: character select & loading screen are fine…

I play on a laptop and whenever I run GW2, it keeps switching between charged and battery mode, as if I was constantly plugging and unplugging the A/C, or if the plug itself wasn’t well plugged. I know it’s not a problem from outside GW2 as when I exit the game, the problem stops…

Anyone could help me? A little bit at loss here… Never heard of something like this.

Never had this problem before & just now started doing it. Could be related to the new update as I hadn’t updated my client in a few days.

Thanx
Thoth

Great fights this week. I hope FA will be able to catch back up to 1st position, but we’ll see. Sadly I haven’t been on as much as I’d would’ve liked to, but I’ve slaughtered my share of you, TC & YB

Impressive. I’d keep it like you made your intro. Effective and fun to watch. Looking forward to the whole thing.