Guild Wars 2

RoRo.8270:

TyPin.9860:

I believe the biggest issue with GW2 PvP not being eSports material is the lack of replay and observation options.

Take SC2 for instance. When it came out, I immediately bought it and laddered like crazy. It was so much fun, even when I was on the loosing and. And I was often on the loosing end

But I enjoyed the game, because of the numbers of casts in the internet, where I could follow the action with passionate commentators. In GW2 you must be life there to observe the game. There is no option to just load a playback and rewind it as much as you want.

If you want to showcase some tactics, strategies and special situations, you can not simply play back to this point in time. I mean you can, but it takes a considerable amount of editing instead of just going to the point in time in a replay while you are watching the match (like you can in SC2). And this makes it not worth it. Also, I would want a “zoom far away out”-option, so I can check what’s going on from further away. If you’d have a freely movable camera and free playback file, where you can relive the action, then there would be way more option to offer this game to an audience. If you have an audience, you have potential to make it into the eSports scene.

You’re joking right?

Nope, I am not. What us ur point mate?

I am a night-shrouded overlord of beasts?

I believe the biggest issue with GW2 PvP not being eSports material is the lack of replay and observation options.

Take SC2 for instance. When it came out, I immediately bought it and laddered like crazy. It was so much fun, even when I was on the loosing and. And I was often on the loosing end

But I enjoyed the game, because of the numbers of casts in the internet, where I could follow the action with passionate commentators. In GW2 you must be life there to observe the game. There is no option to just load a playback and rewind it as much as you want.

If you want to showcase some tactics, strategies and special situations, you can not simply play back to this point in time. I mean you can, but it takes a considerable amount of editing instead of just going to the point in time in a replay while you are watching the match (like you can in SC2). And this makes it not worth it. Also, I would want a “zoom far away out”-option, so I can check what’s going on from further away. If you’d have a freely movable camera and free playback file, where you can relive the action, then there would be way more option to offer this game to an audience. If you have an audience, you have potential to make it into the eSports scene.

Some people asked for more information. Well the last situation I even recorded. Because I was trying out guardian for the first time in sPvP with this build: click me! I wanted to record it, for me to review it and to improve on mistakes. I main a Mesmer, so playing guardian is completely new to me in a PvP environment.

And the video is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXZSroeR25w

EDIT:
I guess I will – for the sake of my precious fragile ego – redefine the word “noob” as an acronym for night-shrouded overlord of beasts

I am not very experienced in sPvP. I am more of a WvW roamer. But when I make new builds or try out new professions, I do some sPvP to see, if the build idea has potential, before I spend the few I have on gear and such.

However, I noticed that when I defeat another player in a 1v1 scenario (mostly on point) I am being called a noob. That is mostly done by higher ranked players (30+).

I am rank 15 only but my question is: Did the meaning of the word noob change at some point in the game? Because I can’t find the connection between defeating someone and being a noob…

I once suggested smth similar. But my stacking conditions was making people slower, if I remember right. However, thinking more about it led me to the conclusion that this would be a very artificial way to punish blobing, while blobing – no matter if a good one or not – still should be a viable strategy.

I agree with some posts above me, that it would be preferable, if ANet encouraged splitting up. Creating situations where achieving two objectives simultaneously is preferable to just running over the map with all people at once.

It is an advantage to lay dead there. More than once could I give my guild zerg valuable information about the development of the fight, once I laid dead there. Once I even died on a wall and the fight went down to the ground inside the keep and I had the perfect angle to perfectly oversee the fight.

People who die should get a black screen, with the message: “due to your incompetence, you now eat grass”, or maybe something nicer

EotM is the map, where you can do whatever the hell you want. Nothing is at stake. Some people claim, that the map is there for PvE karma train, others say otherwise. But it’s only the WvW’s overflow, where no rules exist. Working as intended.

@Virtute.8251:
“con·struc·tive”?

Are you using the same forum as I do?

However, Bottom line is, since you elected me mayor, I say that I am right and you are wrong
If you disagree, you can show your concerns in the next election in 4 years.

Yeah, I won! Because I will ignore everything else, you will write, unless it suits me.

Note to self: Opinion changing avoided, good job.

EDIT:
On the more serious side. Condition damage does do damage. But not enough that anyone would ever notice them the way zerg fights are going down these days. Hence, the damage from conditions is not the main reason why people use -40% duration food.

What do you intend?

And does it work?

You have much troll power mate. Sadly you use it for the dark side.

However, can you teach me?

@Virtute.8251:
You can vote anyone to the major of your own little phantasy town. It only disqualifies you as a serious person in this discussion. You might wanna get your delusions checked. I on my part rather stay with observation as well as trial and error.

The OP complained about the current meta. And in this meta condition damage in zerg fights is negligible. You may claim what you want. Neither is the amount of times, you have played, nor the fact, that you play in gold league any indicator for me, that you actually understand what you are talking about.

You may have with some friends or your guild a viable condition build for all or some of your members, however, that is not the case for most zerg groups atm (no matter if guild or pug). The condition damage put out by the common zergs these days is negligible. Only if you get caught by immobilize or cripple and, for whatever reason, it stays on you too long, you would be suffering from stacked conditions, because your group moved on and took the condition cleanses with them. The players within a proper zerg however don’t suffer from prolonged stacked conditions.

The explanation, why condition duration reduction food is, for some builds, important in this meta is not the mediocre condition damage in zerg fights but it is the CC effect from certain conditions. I now could claim this to be a fact, like so many others do with their opinions. However, it is only my assessment of what actually happened when I joined guild raids as well as pug zergs, both in bronze league on FoW and in silver league on FSP.

Dee Jay.2460:

….then why does my Commander heavily invest to donate -40% Condition Duration food for the zerg?

Because of Immobilize and possibly cripple. All other conditions are unimportant. Damage through conditions is in zerg fights with or without the food is negligible.

Dee Jay.2460:

…then why do I spend 40+ Gold on Runes of Melandru for the -20% Condition Duration?

Same reason as above. Melandru runes and condition duration reduction food in a roaming setup is simply overkill, so you don’t need to deal with a mechanic any more, which you don’t understand.

Dee Jay.2460:

…then why is practically every Guardian in the zerg forced to run AoE condition cleanse?

Same reason as above. Your argument, I bet you think you bring up several points here, is running in circles.

Dee Jay.2460:

…then why is -40% Condition Duration food the most most expensive, yet also commonly used buff-food in WvW?

Because people use it so often. Ever heard of the mechanics of a marked (as limited as GW2 is, those basic rules still apply). It get’s boring. You bring up the same argument, but simply phrase it differently.

Dee Jay.2460:

…then why am I still constantly affected by them despite having some of the best condition-removal in game?

Are you still effected by direct damage? Are you still effected by stun? If you really run with the best condition removal in the game, then there shouldn’t be issues and it should be balanced, unless – and I suspect that is the case – you use your condition removal inadequately.

Dee Jay.2460:

These are all question directed at people who think conditions are"fine" or even “weak” in WvW when the fact that people invest so much to counter them tells a completely different story.

It doesn’t. I also would like to know, if you are against all and every condition, or if you are against condition damage. This would be two different (in some areas overlapping) points.

The price of condition duration reduction food lies in the missunderstanding of the mechanic in a roaming setup and the huge effect of mainly immobilize and cripple in Zerg fights. Also, in organized guild raids, not every profession should uses condition reduction food. There is other, better food out there. Learn to read the meta.

It can, but if you have the ability to stack immobilize up to 15s+, that means you can reapply it often, making it still viable even with the cleanse. But supposed you hit some1 who just used his cleanse, the stacking becomes weirdly unbalanced, imho.

Anyone not in favor of removing immobilize stacking?

No one?

Okay, ANet. We showed you the right way, now make it so

Warrior suck? I knew it all along. Now tell that to the game, so it knows that too.

EDIT:
To level things, I think warriors need reliable stealth and more passive healing when they are stealthed.

Tei.1704:

If condition builds really needed lots of time to build damage, wouldn’t sustain bunkers with good condi removal be the natural predators of any condition build?

Not if they don’t use condition cleanse properly. Condition damage becomes more dangerous, the longer the fight goes on. Eventually the conditions will have stacked and be impossible to deal with. That is why the proper placed condition cleanse is imperative to fight condition builds, so that you will have chances to stand your own in a battle of attrition.

@all:
People seem to misunderstand this thread as a thread of condition damage defense or condition vs. direct damage, when it is not. I have admitted balance issues, including food. However, people bring it up again and again.

But what I am actually saying is, that I think we need an indicator on the health “bar” of the potential damage of all the conditions stacked on you at the moment to make people understand, how conditions work. Because this is still the biggest issue and is shown by several players in this thread and in others over and over again. In the community persists a huge misunderstanding of the actual mechanics of condition damage.

scabrous.7835:

Also, fighting cond specs is not a battle of attrition they can burst almost as heavily as power specs.

That I don’t believe. I have never seen in practice a condition build causing 10k damage via burst. I am not even sure that is possible in theory. They can deal huge amounts of damage, after they have stacked up the conditions on you after time. But that is no burst. Please elaborate on your claim.

Dee Jay.2460:

I agree with that Condition builds need some fixes.

1. You’re right about the food. +40% duration on all conditions is ridiculously overpowered. Make people chose what type of condition they want to focus on.

2. Countering conditions is mostly down to traits and class mechanics, not active play. Unlike direct damage dodging and active combat won’t help you much against conditions. How well you deal with them is almost entirely down to your build. There is no active mitigation.

3. Most condition dumps are very poorly telegraphed. A single Engineer auto-attack can apply 5 different conditions at times. Signet of Spite has a barely visible animation and no projectile you could actively dodge.

4. Lack of trade-offs: Condition builds allow you to stack insane survivability and avoidance with high damage. It’s not a very compelling play-style and rarely involves acting or reacting to your enemies moves.

In general the condition play-style goes entirely against the whole “active combat” ideal ANet established for Guild Wars 2.

1. I agree that the food needs change.
2. As I have mentioned in the first post, I have addressed the passive removal briefly. However, on my Mesmer and Necormancer I use active condition mitigation and on my ranger passive and both work perfectly fine. I even tend to more like the active cleanses.
3. Agreed. However, you can learn the typical condition spikes though, to be able to avoid them. Also cleanse at the right time and not after the lucky auto attack of the engineer.
4. That point shows the biggest problem with how condition damage play style is perceived. The survivability is not only a side effect of a condition damage build, it is a necessity or a condition user would die, due to power damage bursts. It is an inherent trait of condition damage builds and without it, they would fail from the start. That is the trade off. You need time. A power burst build doesn’t need that and time is essential in a roaming environment against competed enemies.

You play into the argument I made originally. Proper perception of condition damage mechanics is limited in the community. With an indicator of potential condition damage, I predict, it would be easier for people to understand how they work and the perception of the direct vs condition damage play style would be more leveled.

I know people running very successfully with only power/critical damage/toughness builds, while getting all precision through food and traits, so that argument doesn’t hold up. But it is anyway too theoretical, if we have not a wider understanding of condition damage mechanics in the community.

The food buff needs some tweaking, I agree, however, that is not the main point of that thread. And the non damaging conditions are available on power builds as well. Even the condition cover effect helps you to maintain long duration immobilize on certain power builds and it is not an argument against condition damage builds alone but represents a different issue.

Confusing certain issues has made discussions in the past destructive and led to talking past each other over and over again.

@killahmayne.9518:
I never said, that people complaining don’t use a condition cleanses. My point is, that the stun-power play evolved earlier than the condition play. So the usage of stun breakers is more common. If the condition play would be the older play style, people would use more condition cleanses and probably would complain about all the stuns players can put out. This is a highly theoretical discussion and might not be quite accurate. It is a theory, that can’t be proven right or wrong.

What I am actually saying about the current play style, is that people, even if they equip condition cleanses, don’t use them properly, due to the lack of indicators for the player. Simply showing the condition stacks, is not enough. I am not saying, that everything is completely balanced. But before we think about the actual balance issues, we need to make it easier to deal with condition damage perception unless we want to overcompensate. There are some balance issues, but condition damage and direct damage are more in line, than people present them to be.

And of course you have much survivability with a condition damage build. It is not a positive side effect, it is a necessity for condition builds. As well as it is a necessity with power burst builds to kill your opponent in a very short time. It is their offense and part of their defense so to say. Those different surviving strategies are competing with each other. And when we talk about the offensive capabilities of a build, we need to talk about it’s defensive ones as well. But without a wider proper understanding of such issues, the discussions are pointless and people will keep talking past each other. Without wanting to offend you, you kinda proof my point of not properly understanding or presenting the condition play. Meanwhile, your over usage of the word “ignorant” doesn’t help your argument…

First, the nerf of food is not really my main point. That is, why I didn’t explain it in detail. To not distract from my main point, I won’t comment on the actual thought behind it. Maybe it would have been better, to not have even mentioned it. Too late now :P

The reason I wasn’t saying: “Equip many more cleanses”, simply was my opinion, that it isn’t needed with the current meta. I simply wanted to point to the “evolution” of the game mechanics and why condition is perceived they way it is.

The implementation of an indicator for potential condition damage is imo very important. Many of the hard bursting direct damage attacks, or the first attack of a direct damage chain has an animation or a kind of trigger, so you know: it’s time to dodge now. People understand that fairly quickly, no matter if new or veteran. But people (especially the newer ones) are simply overwhelmed by a half decent condition user, because the effect of the conditions are not easy to spot in the action of a fight.

Now the question is, what would you rather have implemented in the game? An indicator allowing people to understand the mechanics of condition damage, so they stop complaining. Or eventual condition damage nerfs following the consistent complaints of those, who don’t understand conditions (not saying that all complaints against conditions are based on not understanding). ANet must in the end make the call, on what they find the better way. But you shouldn’t allow your player base to be dissatisfied and eventually leave the game, because they did not understand some of the mechanics.

Condition damage builds, in my experience, are the strongest in the lower levels of player skill. In the top levels, players understand the need of the right build composition and adequate use of condition cleanses. So the indicator wouldn’t really effect them much.

Maybe a compromise can be made. A training mode (in PvP maybe) allowing you to fight other players or NPCs with a condition damage indicator turned on, to help you understand the the mechanics. This indicator would then not be there in PvP matches, that actually award you glory or in any other game mode.

What is needed, to balance things out?
The only adaption concerning directly the game mechanics, I see needed, is the change of some food. We need food (and the respective counter food), that gives a duration bonus to a specific condition type and food, that would give a significant smaller bonus to all condition durations. That would help to balance out some of the very and probably overly effective condition damage builds. This change alone but would not address the actual problem of a very limited understanding of the condition mechanic.

Over all we don’t need damage nerfs or buffs (talking about pre April patch). Damage comparisons are mostly useless, due to the very different approaches of both play styles. What is needed is an indicator for the potential condition damage of all the conditions on you. This is the best way for people to understand, when to cleanse and will go a huge way to level the perception of direct damage versus condition damage. You would see, that 3 stacks of bleed and one burning wouldn’t kill you right away and you could withhold the cleansing. After your health indicates, that all the conditions on you would kill you or you would come very close to death, you’d know it’s time. There are problems with conditions like confusion or torment, because their damage depends on the player’s behavior. But I am sure, ANet can find a way how to deal with that.

I am getting a bit annoyed by all the miss information people put out to make their case when it comes to condition damage versus direct damage.

People compare arbitrary different Gears, like Dire vs. Soldier and such things. Then people invest much of their time in calculating what does more damage, when both kinds of damage require often very different ways of offensive and defensive behavior. But I think the main problem with conditions is the perception of them. I am not saying, everything is fairly balanced, some condition damage builds are just over the top, but the main problem is another.

How damage developed in WvW:
I remember after release everyone was running around with berserker gear in WvW and thieves for instance had a blast killing everything with one stun and then insane direct damage. People but soon realized, if they geared a bit more defensively and equip one, or even two stun breakers, they have good chances on taking on this kind of stealth and damage burst. Conditions were around at this time, but were not that big of a deal to most of the players. Builds weren’t “optimized”, and we didn’t see so much extreme builds, as we see today. Also ANet deployed many many balance updates since then.

Then condition builds became more refined, and we saw builds, that were able to do condition bursts, overloading you with many conditions, that people weren’t equipped to deal with. One of the main reasons was that on the utility bar were several stun breakers, but no condition removal. It wasn’t needed before. Condition damage became the new meta and many of the top solo roamers and small guild groups (were it comes into effect the most) adapted. The biggest adaption is but not the usage of super many condition cleanses, but the usage of one condition cleanse, at the right time, the dodge of the condition spikes and such or the passive condition removal via traits or skills, with the right amount of CC.

How to defend yourself against the new meta, that invaded the established play style?
Fighting direct damage builds, you often need to dodge the critical skill chain, what can be done sometimes with even one very good timed dodge in the right direction. To to this, you needed the escape the CC, if you got caught, with stun breakers and dodges you could avoid most of the damage before it hits you. That was the usual “Bushid?” of WvW. It was simple and direct forward. It was easy to understand. Then came the condition damage builds and the usual tactics failed.

Fighting condition damage is different, because conditions builds often reapply the conditions over the whole fight duration. You still need to dodge the conditions spikes, but it is not enough. The equivalent to the stun breaker, to safe yourself, is the condition cleanse. It still has the purpose to prevent potential damage. But other than the classical play style, you needed to wait, until it is worth the usage. If you cleanse too early, you will have cleansed only some of the few conditions and the way is free for the overload burst. If you cleanse too late, you will simply lose to the few conditions your enemy reapplies after cleanse. Here is the actual problem with condition damage. Players can not really figure out, when the optimal moment for the cleanse is, won’t know if they did it too early or too late. The game offers very little indication for you and make it hard for you to figure out the proper strategy.

There are but 3 ways of understanding it. First just keep trying, but that can be very frustrating if you fail to understand the mechanics. Second you can go to sPvP and try certain builds yourself (the most condition dmg builds can easily be made in sPvP) and learn how to play on the other side. And the third way is that you ask your guild mates or friends to help you out (it’s an MMO after all). Ask a mate, who runs a condition build, to duel you and share your experiences after the fight. Simply practice. These are the best ways at the moment to get an understanding of condition builds and how to fight them.

Continued in 2nd post…

Celebratty.1632:

Only a WvW player knows whos fighting who, why and how the fight is going just by glancing at some orange swords on the map.

Only an ex-WvW player quits the game but still browses the WvW forums and patch notes every day.

Awesome, so very true.

@darko.4501
I understand what you’re saying. The idea is only a draft at this point and the benefits are big imo. So the question should be, how you could be encouraged to play when you have weaker forces?

@ceol.9175
I don’t think it is overly complicated. Connected with Dayra’s idea (see below) it makes it actually less complicated, because you do not have to carry the souls back to a keep, it works more automated. This solution is not tied to polulation per se, but to the comparative coverage. You can have a huge coverage with this “soul” system, but as long as you have no opponent, your gain in PPT will be very very small. Only when players/forces confront each other do they have a chance to significantly advance their points. Population differences at a given time are not addressed at all by this system I think, because if you have more, you still will have better chances to kill your enemies and “take their souls”.

Dayra.7405
I like the idea of automated “soul flow”^^ But I wouldn’t necesserily connect it with the player’s last activities. It shouldn’t matter, if he or she participated in the conquest of a keep/tower, because that would encourage blobing even more, because of the need to be there, when keeps/towers are taken. Why not simply let it flow to the closest friendly keep/tower in any case?

Okay, I had a sudden idea that I wanted to share.

The Problem in WvW is, that through coverage you basicly whin or lose the matchup. My idea doesn’t get rid of that completely but might work arround a pure coverage advantage.

Servers still cap Towers and Keeps. But they work differently now. You get only a small amount of PPT awarded for having that (like +1, +2, +3 and such). The main source for PPT will be enemy souls. Meaning, when you defeat an enemy player the player causing the killing blow will get awarded a soul token. You have to bring this to your keep or tower to a soul fountain or smth like that which then with more and more souls in it, will award PPT for a certain ammount of time, dependend also on the upgrade level of the tower or keep. The ammount of souls, one keep or tower can process has a cap, so you need a different tower/keep for more PPT. This cap should be fairly low, to encourage splitting up and securing more soul fountains.

This way, you need to actually defeat players. If there are less players, there is less to defeat and you get less PPT.

If the enemy captures a keep or tower, that is currently processing souls, that souls will stay in the fountain and award points to the new owner. This way, you need to defend the tower in order to prevent that from happening.

I can also think of a nice feature, if your server is outmanned. As an outmanned server, you have the choice to release the souls of the soul fountain. They won’t award PPT then but fight alongside you in the keep/tower as quite strong npcs for their remaining time, in which they would have been in the fountain to award PPT.

Possible Advantages

• One server running over a BL will get some WXP and such, but no PPT from fighting empty BL.
• We return to an actual PvP system instead of only PvD to progress with your server.
• Roamers can now contribut not only by escorting dollies and taking camps, they can also significantly increase the PPT.
• Defending makes more sense now, because the points you got from defeating players might go to the enemy for the time, the souls are processed.

Possible Disadvantages

• Might encourage more Zerging, to be more “save” and get more soul tokens.

Just my 2 cents in making some points pointless:

• Some condition haters claim pressision is nearly or completely unimportant for the condition dmg dealt
• Other condtion haters claim, that Dhuumfire is totally overpowered

Those 2 statements are contradicting each other. Get your facts strait guys. Also, conditions like criple or freeze are available and important to power builds as well and don’t make a valid point against condition dmg builds.

EDIT:
Also, mesmer condition dmg greatly benefits from precission:

• Sharper Images – Illusions inflict bleeding on critical hits.

Effsee.1583:

ElexOrieN.2130:

Phoenixlin.8624:

Your critizism/whining is “Why are you killing players in a pvp zone QQ”

Just know what you are defending before calling others noob or QQer.

It’s WvW not PvP big difference kiddo

I thought pvp meant player versus player, isn’t that what WvW is for?

Yes it is. Don’t take ElexOrieN to seriously. He is just mad, that he can not do the achievment according to his own scedual. Now the developers should interfere with the WvW game mode, so he can keep to his plans or other players should recognise his rights to get this achievment asap…

The WvW achievments are all way to easy for PvElers to get. Because it doesn’t take much skill, just a big blob and a half decent commander. It is okay then, when there are some achievments, who are – at least for some weeks – connected with a minor challange.

Anyone else worried about Dire?
I am not.

I found it actually fun to be besieged there. All the PvE noobs trying to get kills. I was at almost the same position as in the screenshot with my necro on FSP. I jumped down and lured all the scrubs closer to my server mates up at the spawn and we slaughtered many of them, before I finally went down my self…

Then I changed to mesmer and just did the achievment myself with some guildies (I believe we were a party of 4 players) and it was not a big issue.

As for achievment hunters causing queues. That was to be expected and you can go EoTM now to have at least smth to do. I agree that the scrubs should better go themselfes to EoTM so that they don’t ruin our score, but I guess they will become less, once they have puged their achievments.

ShakeyStorm.7180:

Warriors seems OP in terms of damage and defense.

Constructively asking, are there ways us Mesmers can neutralize their overwhelming advantages?

My way of dealing with that:
I go (almost) full Zerker with greatsword (and if you are good at chasing stuff with phase retreat, then get also staff^^). Then I use a high DPS-Phantasm build. There are plenty arround, I made my own. With this setup, you can take them down, even if they are running. But it is hard and you have to bait them to stay longe enough in the fight.

That play sytle is dangerous, but gives a very rewarding feeling, once succeeded. My strategy is the following. I fight the Warrior in a half hearted manner. Meaning that he hits me quite often (be sure to have blink or smth like that rdy to avoid the heavy hitting of 100 Blades or so). I barely shatter, to keep the phantasm allive and I avoid active healing (some healing comes from regeneration). This is the dangerous part. As the warriors live starts to go criticly low, the only reason for him to stay, is my own low life.

Here I set up for the final assault, usind MI as an attempt to set up my attack (and hopeflly apearing to want to flee). It depends on the situation, but Nullfield+F3 offers a good start for the following assault. I then throw everything I have, burn every CC my weapons offer and via weaponswap throw out 2 phantasm + F1 shatter once thea have attacked.

I am honest, I often die myself through that method, but on good days I have beaten 2 GS warriors in their own (not upgraded) camp at it felt awesome

Terrier.8732:

I think the point has been completely missed sigh

Yes it has. But that is no unique trait of the GW2 community.

One has to say, that there are being raised some serious issues in some threads. But the majority is imo very one sidedly complaining to things that more concern their own play style, than the actual game design.

Omaris Mortuus Est.2738:

Funny there was no cap when the game was released….

I remember a friend, who played GW2 in beta. And he explained to me, how an enemy Zerg turteled (when standing on one point wasn’t the standard already). At this moment, he said, they understood, that there was an AoE dmg cap. And that was during the beta.

This is a quote from the AoE-wiki-article history from September 2012

[…] An area of effect skill may only affect a maximum of 5 targets […]

Those pre implementation judgments are fishy. Because the calculations made can be easily contered.

I argue, that the dmg nerf mostly affects the full glass cannon builds. Because any other, who prefers more dmg than defens but runs a more balanced build, has still potential to regain the dmg (that propably isn’t so much nerved on a not full glass canon build anyway) by sacraficing some defense.

As far as I understand it, the dmg nerf will more effect the full glass canon builds. In a Zerg ppl run more defensive, if not heavy tank builds. So maybe there won’t be a noticable impact at all.

Do not prejudge that change, if you didn’t see it implemented yet. Theorizing is smth I do a lot too, but one shouldn’t judge too quickly.

The no bags part is a good idea imho. But the lesser PPT part is problematic. Jocksy.3415 has already ecplained why.

One could also maybe lessen the ammount of WXP you get from killing an outnumbered character. Also NPCs belonging to the outnumbered server on the map should grant half the WXP. That and the no bags part would make it more attractive for the server stronger in numbers to change map and thus give the outnumbered guys a chance to take get some stuff back… of course that would only be temporary. But that is at this point common in WvW.

@ArchonWing.9480
I agree that rangers become less and less effective, the more players are involved. That is the same with Mesmer btw. However, Mesmers have unique utilities that can be vital to Zerg play, while Rangers lack such abilities. Stuff rangers can do in large scale fights can be done better by other professions imo. But the OP was talking about small scale fights, so that’s what I was refering to.

@DaMikenatr.7041
I am not sure how to respond, because it feels you are not really answering to my post. I am not dismissing the experience of players. I am just pointing out, that the opinion of the majority must not be the one closest to what is actually true. As a company, I would – if I was only caring about pleasing the most players – still listen to those, who represent the masses. If that would be a good/wise move is another question.

My point with my old necro build was not to compare it to rangers, but to underline the mistake that players make, when letting themselve being influenced by a biased mainstream idea.

P.S. I am not telling you, under which rock I live. It’s a nice rock and I want it all to myself. Find yourself an own rock, if you desire one…

Hey community,

I might get hate posts here about how unbalanced everything actually is and that my post is just stupid or smth. However, I still want to write that thing. So deal with it

I rarely played GW2 since January. Only did monthly in 2 or 3 days and then went off again (before January I played almost every day at least 2 or 3 hours). I tried many other MMO games, that are out there. SWTOR (payed for some months to enjoy all the features), TESO (beta), several free to play MMOs and such.

I have to say, after comming back, the devs have done, despite the “profession XYZ is totally over-/underpowered” threads, a good job. I like how each profession playes so much differently than the other and that sometimes you have the feelin of playing even a different game when switching professions. And seeing the huge differences in playstyle GW2 is, especially in comparison with some other games out there, very good balanced. There are some issues with some professions, I admit that. But that doesn’t interfere with my enjoyment of playing my part in the game.

Considering that GW2 finances itself via a one time puchase and then only microtransactions we are getting a nice game, where you don’t have the pressure of “I pay for it each months, so I gotta play it.”.

I for my part will start playing more GW2. Because I like the fighting system and the different styles of all the professions. Smth that I have missed in other games.

This are my 2 bits.

TyPin out xD

Atherakhia.4086:

Prysin.8542:

Atherakhia.4086:

Prysin.8542:

Atherakhia.4086:

snip

I play what i want, i play how i want, i play when and where i want aaaaaaand, wait for it……….. you do the exact same thing.

As we both should. And I’m happy you actually enjoy it. But you’re still as ineffective as any other Ranger.

may i suggest you for once may be wrong? Or maybe your infinite wisdom can finally shed light on something my ranger cannot provide that is not positive.

I could be wrong. 99% of the WvW community isn’t though. Rangers are easily the most ineffective class in WvW.

I respond to this with a quote from Winston Churchil:

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

Adepted for GW2 I want to say, that the mayority of players may not be right about some issues. Also the players writing in the forum and making their opinion public represent not the mayority of players playing the game. Thus, you only know a fraction of WvWer’s opinions through the forum.

I remember back in the day, when every1 said how bad necromancers are and I was beating the hell out of my opponents even 1v3 with a condition build, that was on a pre doom fire patch, before every1 complained about the op-ness of necro conditions.

What I enjoy in this game is one thing:

I am not a really great player. My responses are often slow, my dodges often random or gutt feeling dodges than responsive and my awarness of the battle field is average. Still, by building special builds (I rarely run mainstream builds) I win most of my roaming engagements. This is the matter with my necromancer, with my mesmer and with my (power) ranger.

99% of the players, without wanting to insult anyone, are playing “effective” and the builds that have been “established”. I experiment most of the time, trying new builds and adapting them. If I start out with a maionstream build (with a profession I am unfamiliar with), I quickly adept it to my needs until the build fits my playstyle and not my playstyle fits the build. And I guess that is, what the ranger that was witnessed by the OP was doing. He exploits a niche, that most players are simply not aware of.

Simple answer: yesy I have followed each of those commander types.

However, there is a reason, why the melee train commander types dominate. But all I wanted to say was, that maybe other professions might become more intersting, depending on the design of the commander utilites an therefor hopefully mixing it up again a bit.

While there are some valid points, this thing is more than simply role playing nonsense.

However, that idea was naturally only a first draft. Things have to be adjusted. I admit that it would be harder for newer commanders, if they 1st had to level those skills. So connecting them with any kind of ingame currency progress (yes, also [W]XP can be seen as a curency) would be step in the wrong direction.

But granted those abilities would give substantial boosts, to either dmg, or survivel, depending on the ability, I can imagein those commander utilities to be a serious alternative to their own profession utilities. Creating a mix of survivability and ability to boost and command the squad. It would maybe also allow those professions that are not that often used as commander to be a viable commander profession.

That idea was propably already mentioned earlier, but for the chance it wasn’t, I’ll do it here^^

It started in this thread and I’ll just quote the respecting posts:

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

Zerging is considered the most effective way to play WvW.
Probably because of stacking, and the damage cap on number of players.

I have kind of a cool idea to improve battlefield tactics and reduce normal stacking.
Players have to actually communicate and as its quite visual, its quite straight forward and everyone should know what to do.

Here we go:

• The commander gets new command lines called “formations”
• The damage cap is removed
• All formations have an individual cooldown of 1 minute.

• If the commander types /fb or /fallback, the commander tag is replaced by a horn. You will hear a horn sound (#3).
• If the commander types /charge, the commander tag is replaced by a sword hold high. You will hear the charge horn sound (#3).
• If the commander types “/hold” for example, a large line combo field is placed at his feet. The commander tag is replaced by a “shield icon”. Players have to somewhat spread along the line (we will get to that later #1). You gain certain boons but this is to be discussed aswell (#2). You will hear a line sound of swords bashing shields for example (#3).
• More examples could be made and suggestions are welcome.

• The commanders icon is replaced by Blue icons that still embrace the commanders tag.
• #1 The line could consist out of three individual lines which turn into your world color when players enter the field. If each of the tree lines contain at least 3 players the buff is given to players within x range of the commander.
• If the commander gets out of x range from the line, “/hold” will start its cooldown and is cancelled.
• #2 These fields could either grant the damage cap now present in this game, or grant boons.
• #3 These sounds should be iconic. And after a few hours of playing WvW with a commander, a new player should be able to tell when to fall back or charge by just listening to the sound.

~This is just an idea on top of my head. I think if balanced right, and with some more idea’s it should give real tactical play instead of mindless zerging.

TyPin.9860:

I like those ideas. But I would modify it a bit.

You have 3 abilities here. Those could be 3 utilities for a commander. Yes, he has to give up his profession utilities, but combined with certain boons of the commander utilities, it would be a quite interesting mechanich. A commander could then also spend WXP into special commander trait lines, unlocking this abilities, improving them or reducing cooldown. The possibilities are endless.

Twinny.9304:

Love the idea of commander utilities, it would be awesome but the only thing u would need to be wary of is, I would see more commanders tagging up just to be able to chain these utilities. If the buffs from commander utilities would be only available to squad members this could probably work really well, and encourage people to use squads more often, which could then slightly lower the amount s in zergs since squads have limits and if there are 2 commanders on map i’d make sure i atleast follow 1 in his squad for the buffs

So what do you guys think about that?

@Twinny.9304:
I’ll start a new thread about that topic, I think the idea deserves it

EDIT:
the link is here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Commander-Utilities/first#post3674098

@Menzies The Heretic.3415:
I like those ideas. But I would modify it a bit.

You have 3 abilities here. Those could be 3 utilities for a commander. Yes, he has to give up his profession utilities, but combined with certain boons of the commander utilities, it would be a quite interesting mechanich. A commander could then also spend WXP into special commander trait lines, unlocking this abilities, improving them or reducing cooldown. The possibilities are endless.

@Topic:
I don’t think removing the AoE cap would be a good idea. I see already an Ele hitting a full Zerg with retaliation buff and the Ele is done for…

The allround condition duraiton increase should be smaller that the specific condition duration increase. So nerf it to the allround +/-10% condi duration and all is fine imho.

I bet NCsoft has told Anet to hold release so that ppl would then be more tempted for Wildstar, another NCsoft child. After I learned how NCsoft collects the money from the gem store and uses them for other games, like wildstar, I lost believe in that publisher.

I think much of the mess here comes down to this. I could be wrong, it is simply a gut feeling, but I can’t help it.

Granted I live in germany. Many tell me the servers european servers are here, so I have the best possible connection to the server.

I have not experienced any kind of major skill lag the last months, except them being caused by my internet connection (websites slow, or even internet connection loss).

But also many from my guild (where the majority does not live in germany) seem to have not that many connection issues. Even in 30v30 zerg fights.

I agree, I allways like buffs^^

I was actually thinking, the first time I played Staff Ele, that the trait, which increases AoE with staff, could also decrease cooldowns of utilities. I’d like that. Those insanely long utilitiecooldowns are really bad, if the fight takes more than a few seconds, because where I can pop my utilities with mesmer 2 times, I can pop them only one time with Ele (and honestly, the mesmer decoy for example has more to it that any ele defensive utility imho). However, I am not really qualified atm to judge that, because I still alg the experience.

@KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:
I watched your videos. Gave me some ideas, but basicly I am using all those combos already. I also like to use static field and gust to push my opponents on the forcefields on Skyhammer.

However, fighting thieves is not a problem for me. My main is mesmer and I have spend a fair ammount of time fighting thieves roaming in WvW and the ones in sPvP don’t seem to be much different. They are very predictable and usually suicide in my AoEs, cuz they think I’m an easy pick.

I will practice more with staff. I could use dagger or scepter, but I find the staff the most stylish, so I wanna make it work. I remember staff eles in WvW, who I just eat in seconds with my mesmer. But playing Ele myself I can’t ger rid of the feeling that with the right ammount of practice and experience it is possible to make Staff Ele work in 1v1 and even 1vX. When I get to this point, I will put up some videos myself