A real competitive system would make it harder to win if you won and easier if you lost. ANET chooses to favor players by doing the opposite.
A real competitive system doesn’t reward losing. A real competitive system doesn’t allow everyone to progress. A real competitive system requires personal improvement …
You don’t want a real competitive system. You want a system, that guarantees everyone wins, regardless of how good or bad he plays.
Matchmaking will find players who are within 15 pips of each other, then order them sequentially by MMR, putting the top 5 players on one team and the bottom 5 on the other. This ordering is done by MMR, not by pips, so a team with lower league players could be the higher MMR team; you really can’t tell if you’re on the high or low MMR team (so don’t worry about it).
It will try to find players who are within 15 pips and a certain MMR range - otherwise it would be pretty much the same as season 2.
What i wonder – does the system really searches for 10 players and then divides them into 2 teams or does it create teams out of 5 players and then match those teams against each other?
If you’re in the third group, you need to focus on improving if you want your win rate to improve.
Or just wait, until the majority of better player has moved on. The longer the season is going, the easier climbing will become.
He just took some random numbers, he doesn’t state anywhere, the worst player of the better team hast to be better or the same than the best player of the weaker team. Wouldn’t make any sense.
The matchmaking system is putting teams of similar MMR against each other. Unlike season 1 and unranked it doesn’t put the highest and lowest MMR on the same team to balance them out – because it would punish the high MMR players and encourages the lowering of MMR by intentionally losing games. So yes, one team might be favoured, but this doesn’t mean, the difference between those teams is big and the other team can’t win.
The system has still flaws of course.
Btw, in season 1 i won games, where – according to the pip gain – i had a chance of 20% to win.
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It then stacks one team by design, making it so that the WORST player on the best team is equal MMR to the BEST player on the other team, and then making EVERYONE else on the higher team better than that.
Where did they say this? Because i really doubt, this is, how the system works …
Link of those “anet explanations”? Because i can’t find any …
Season 3 matchmaking is a mix of season 1 and season 2 matchmaking. Teams aren’t exactly even – which would be impossible anyways and which does not equal a pre-set outcome. They just don’t put the best and the worst players within a certain MMR range on the same team, to balance them out, because it kinda punishes you for playing well and rewards losing, but unlike season 2 the player’s MMR shouldn’t differ too much between two teams. Which means, both teams have a chance to win.
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I wouldn’t consider mainhand axe a true melee weapon, even though #2 works best in melee range.
But even power focused melee ranger with gs + s/x can be played with pretty tanky gear while maintaining decent burst thanks to Remorseless.
This is what i’m running almost exclusively in WvW since the trait changes last year (with only minor changes here and there – and new pets since HoT).
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I’ll say this again: “No serious competition format deliberately pre sets the outcome of a contest.” It is insulting to the side that’s meant to win, since it’s not a show of skill to win a game you go into with a heavy advantage. It also insults the side meant to lose, since they are simply being used as fodder.
A true competitor wants an even match and may the best player win.
The outcomes of matches are not pre-set. The machmaking system tries to match teams of similar MMR. Yes, one team can be better than the other and therefore will have a better chance of winning the match. Doesn’t mean, the other team has zero chance. The difference between teams should be much less than in season 2. It is impossible to always match 100% even teams.
It is the same even in real competitions.
The only way to let you win more matches would be, to put better players on your team, who are then forced to carry you. But why should other players be punished for being better than you? Just because of your own shortcomings?
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Yeah, it does.
They might as well make a power based rune that deals 5k dmg to surrounding if you get hit, ignores protection/toughness/dodges/blocks aka krait rune. Or power based rune that does 3k dmg and stuns whoever hits you.
You mean, something like Rune of Air?
I can remember times, when it was used by some power necros, who would kill people just by unavoidable procs (fire & air sigil, air rune proc, chill of death). I don’t miss it …
Depends on the enemy comp. Against teams full of the usual condi builds (necro, mesmer, warrior), lb can work wonders. It is also ok against thieves, revs, dh and other druids. It sucks against ele/engi heavy teams though.
Almost everybody uses lots of condi remove. Ancient seeds/entangle in particular is countered by many things. And condi ranger/druid relies too much on it.
Again – condi ranger can work. Just like my melee ranger can work. And almost anything else. But other builds are clearly better in most cases.
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You can make anything work … till you meet good players with good builds. Even if you can use almost anything in WvW with some success (not only condi), there are good reasons, why certain builds are stronger than most others. And both condi ranger and condi engi are fairly easy to counter, especially by builds with decent condi remove and ranged dmg.
Btw, try stacking 30+ bleeds on somebody who is not (brain) afk …
It wasn’t even for balancing purposes. It was because people were using those traps more “like grenades”. It wasn’t enough trap-like for anet.
I don’t think you can use that as a proof. I mean if I die 2 times in a row from condition bombs I have lost 30-40k damage, but if I fight a power build and manage to heal myself over and over again I don’t die but the damage I have received is way over 30-40k damage. Understand what I mean? It could may as well prove the contrary as if you survive longer by getting hit by pure power but die faster with condition damage.
Of course it is not a proof, but power offers still much better burst and gives you less time for healing. Which means, you usually should need less powerdmg to kill somebody than condi dmg. Of course, if you invest heavily into defense against power and then facetank everything, condis will kill you more likely than power. Because there is less passive defense against condis. Those passive defenses are one reason, why power dmg might seem weaker sometimes. Doesn’t mean, we need even more of this passive crap.
Most condi builds are slow, lack ranged pressure and are weak vs cc. They are no bunkers and actually quite vulnerable to power burst. Yet most people refuse to adapt and abuse those weaknesses. They prefer to sit in the condi build’s faces, tank everything and then cry about dieing – that’s my observations.
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After 50 games this season i had one single game, where condition dmg taken was higher ( ~ 50%) than direkt dmg taken – enemy team had 3 necros, 1 warrior and 1 thief – my team won btw, and i didn’t die the whole match. One game, where direkt and condi dmg taken was about even. 48 games where direkt dmg taken was significantly higher. Often 3-4x or even more.
I really wonder, what you are doing, to only die to conditions …
Don’t forget about Druidic Clarity, which is still one of the most potent condi clears in the game. Just make sure you have frequent access to CA and condis shouldn’t be much of a problem.
Sometimes i’m running with DC as my only cleanse – and I’m still doing fine (i’m using regen, SotW and Natural Healing for AF charging, which means CA is usually aviable on CD, even in 1vs1).
Of course there would be many ways to abuse this system, but sometimes you know from the start that you have no chance.
Many games are lost, because people THINK, they don’t have a chance …
Srsly, your “betting” idea is terrible and would just encourage people to intentionally throw games. It doesn’t matter, if you think, your chances to win are good or bad, you should always try to make the best out of it.
Good teams win, bad teams lose …
Btw, i have never seen top (esl) players on my team discussing strategy at start.
Pre condi stacking changes there was less healing, less cleansing, and barely any condi builds where viable. You NEED much more dmg now, to actually kill stuff. But i guess, condi builds are simply not allowed to kill stuff …
Even though i’m facing quite a lot condition builds, dmg taken is always significantly higher than condition dmg taken after a match. Conditions underpowered?
Yes, each of your shouts will clear 1 condi on yourself (and on your pet).
Rune of Leadership will convert 2 condis into boons for you and allies when you use an elite skill and Lyssa Rune will convert 5 condis into boons for you on elite use.
Many druids use Dolyak Rune, because the health regen helps with charging AF, which means more fequent access to druidic clarity and heals from CA.
The rune is bugged with ranger’s shouts. It only cleanses the ranger and his pet, but no allies. Might be intended for shouts that don’t affect allies (regen + swiftness come from trait, not directly from the shouts) but it should definitely work with Protect Me and Guard. Guess they just forgot about those shouts, when they reworked them.
I’m curious, how the combat statistics after a game look like for those complaining about condis.
Because in my about 20 games this season i had only one game where i ate not at least twice as much power dmg than condi dmg. Usually it is 3x -4x as much power dmg, sometimes even up to 90% of total dmg taken. Only one single game, where dmg taken was about the same for both types of dmg.
In reality big cats like the tiger or jaguar for example are quite good at swimming and not afraid of water. So making cats terrestrial and dogs amphibious wouldn’t be more realistic.
And because underwater combat seems like an abandoned relict of the past, i doubt anet will change anything about it.
Defensive traits and skills are more important than defensive stats. Toughness, vitality and healing power alone doesn’t do much. And some condi builds have to give up those defense from skills and traits. Engi/Scrapper is a very good example. Power scrapper invests a lot into defense via traits , weapon and utilities, which makes the build quite tanky even with marauder stats. If you want to go condi you have to give up a good amount of those defenses. Even with tankier stats, condi engi is easier to kill and the dmg is not reliable enough because it gets countered by cleanses or simply outhealed. Of course this is not true for all condi builds, but it is one reason, why condi builds are far from being superior in general, even if the can deal decent dmg with tanky stats.
Having only one important dmg stat means not only the ability to use tanky stats while maintaining decent dmg, it also means, condi builds gain much less by going full glass (stat wise). A marauder/zerk power build gets much more dmg from those stats alone. Most viper/sinister condi builds will deal significantly less (burst) dmg than zerk builds – with the same or even less survability.
So for many condi builds those tanky stats are not a needless bonus – they are a necessity.
I don’t want to say, all condi builds are balanced. They are not. But it is always a matter of certain builds, traits and skills. Not a issue with condis in general. Same for power, sustain and pretty much everything else.
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1) You are punished harder for not dodging it.
If you read a condition skill tool tip you will see the thousands of damage the enemy takes from just getting hit by the skill if the condition is not removed.
Most condi skills deals less than 5k dmg in total (often only 2-3k dmg), only few exceptions can reach more. And this is the maximum dmg from those skills and it usually takes 5-10 seconds or even more for the full effect. If the condis get removed, the actual dmg dealt is often less than 1k.
Power skills can hit way harder and you get the dmg immediately, which gives the enemy less time to react. Not avoiding important powerskills is often more dangerous, because you can’t remove or outheal the dmg afterwards.
2) It is annoying to be dying when you not being hit.
Condition damage is the holy grail of passive game play. One hit and they die without you doing a thing besides sitting their. It is worth saying that if a player faces power they have dodge allot more to survive. Verses conditions A few hits means your death unless the conditions are removed.
Conditions don’t come out of nowhere. The enemy has to hit you, and he has to hit you with multiple skills. If you just let the enemy hit you while doing absolutely nothing yourself, then yes, you will die – against everything.
3) Some conditions cover other conditions.
When you need to remove 20 stacks of bleeding and you remove vulnerability you get pretty upset.
This point is true. The randomness of condi cleanse can be pretty annyoing. Not the best design.
Edit: I can add to that. Condition damage is not affected by protection, weakness, armor, aegis, blocks, retaliation (I really wish retaliation proceed per condition dot type), Distortion, evades, many damage immunities, and generally can burst as much as 10k in one second or more. This is Dot damage per second. I wish power was that strong and had no mitigation.
Condition mitiation =
1) removal (hope they don’t reapply)
2) Resistance (Hope they don’t steal/remove this)There is no contest comparing condition damage to power
Everything which prevents you from getting hit (blocks, evades, invuln, …) works as well against condibuilds as it works against power builds. Retaliation works against both types of builds too.
Armor and protection work only againt power, right, but it negates less dmg than well timed resistance and cleanses, which counter only conditions, and can negate up to 100% of the dmg.
And no condibuild can burst 10k in one second. To reach this high condi ticks you have to stack a lot of conditions, which takes time. Even max dps PvE condi builds would need several seconds, and it requires a target which facetanks everything like those dumb mobs in PvE.
Non of the meta condi builds is very bursty and more bursty condi builds like burnguard or burnengi (even those won’t reach 10k in one second) are not meta for good reasons. If you are dieing against a condibuild in a few seconds you are doing something wrong.
I don’t think i had condis ticking for 10k on me ever. Not even in WvW and against multiple enemys. If i die to condis, which of course happens, i usually die to 1-2k ticks at maximum.
This is something that many people forget but i have to remind it:
9) Condi cleanse skills require cast time, wich means the more you are focused on cleansing the less offensive you are. Instead, against a full power you either dodge/block/kite or go offensive, but you never lose cast time.About the 6), i would remove any sort of condi applcation on autoattacks.
Many cleansing abilities are instant or passive. And even if you have to cast something, that’s 1 second at max, where you aren’t attacking. Won’t make much of a difference. Blocking, evading, kiting, … usually cost you more time. And again – you can avoid many condi skills just like many power skills.
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This. The reason the new pets are used nearly universally is because they have the means of reliably hitting another player who’s moving around, instead of chasing slowly after them and being perfectly safe to ignore entirely.
Birds and even cats (especially the tiger) are not that bad. They offer pretty decent spike dmg. But they die way to fast against classes with high aoe/cleave dmg, or in teamfights. If smokescale and bristleback were as glassy, their ability to hit the target would matter much less – a dead pet can’t hit anything.
Some pets are very easy to kill. That’s why they are rarely used (in PvP). Dead pet = useless pet. And it is not neccessary to kill the pets to kill the ranger/druid. If you make pets easier to kill, you can basically delete them.
No other class can lose access to its class mechanic for up to 60 seconds.
Pet swap has a cooldown …
As long a ranger has no proper ways to protect the pets from dmg, they shouldn’t be easy to kill, because otherwise they are completely useless. And because ranger relies on the pets, the whole class would be useless. No thanks …
How do you define “fighting over an objective”? Only inside a small radius arround said objective? So stopping the enemys before they can come close to your “territory” shouldn’t be rewarded?
And if using siege doesn’t give points, it would be better to remove it (or make players immune to siege dmg), otherwise it could be used for easy trolling. And don’t forget, siege is often the only reason, why defending in outnumbered situations is even possible.
Fights are often not fair. With or without siege and objectives involved – it doesn’t matter when it comes to fairness. So they are not the best base for fair scoring.
Not everybody runs with “the main forces” and this is good in pretty much every regard. Splitting up should never be punished. And because the outnumbered buff can never reflect the situation in a particular fight, it should never influence a fight.
So i just killed the enemy in a fair 1vs1, but because there is a map blob from my server somewhere else, there should be no reward? Doesn’t make much sense.
Killing somebody who is outnumbered in a fight (surrounded by much more enemys than allies at the moment of the death) shouldn’t give rewards/points, but i guess, a mechanic like this isn’t easy to implement properly.
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Not it doesn’t.. not at all. Currently it rewards the players that AVOID the fights and go take camps, keeps and towers that are undefended. Avoiding fights is how YB made it to T1, and why everyone got bored and left…
The best way to win in the current system and the proposed system is to AVOID fights, PvD when no one is there, kill the NPC’s, build ACs and balis and cats and shield gens and Trebs and then make sure your zerg gets into those towers and keeps fast enough to not allow anyone to die then get on siege and kill the 5 people outside! Doesn’t that sound fun? YAY!
Increased PPK might discourage people even more to engage in (fair) fights, because losing those would matter even more. I’d expect even more siege use, running away from even numbers, hiding behind walls, rolling over much smaller groups and ganking.
WvW isn’t suited for fair fights. There will be always a more or less big difference in numbers and let’s not forget the terrible class balance, which is almost completely ignored by the devs when it comes to wvw. So usually fair fights only happen, because the involved sides commit to those fights, simply because they want those fights. “For fun” basically, not for the points. But “fair” always involves the risk of losing. And as soon winning matters, less people would want to take this risk.
@ those that want to “punish” server with higher population and want to give smaller servers the same chances to win a matchup
Population differences are not only a problem because of the scoring. It is a problem because it often creates unfun situations (boring onesided fights, spawncamping, …) regardless of the scoring system. So the scoring system should still allow the separation of high and low population, to match them against similar populated server and create as even matchups as possible – not only score wise.
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No. Power offers still way better burst.
When will anet realize, that amulets are not the (main) issue?
1. Changing utilities and/or a weapon requires only a few mouse klicks, but can make a huge difference when it comes to surviving/escaping or dieing.
2. Learn to fight 1vs1. Yes, even if you don’t want to fight those gankers and aren’t build for 1vs1, knowing when to dodge and how to counter their skills will help a lot. The average “zerg player” doesn’t die 1vs1 only because of his build. It might be a disadvantage for him, sure. But many would lose with any build, because they have never learned how to get along outside of their zerg’s safety.
If they outnumber you with builds suited for ganking (high burst/cc/mobility), there isn’t much you can do though, outside of waiting for help or going a different way.
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UI
- Many of these new systems and changes will also necessitate updates to the UI, to display all this new information.
Please keep the UI clear and/or make some displayed informations customizable. The “Server ABZ has captured XYZ”-message popping up in the middle of the screen currently is already quite annoing, especially mid-combat. I definitely don’t want even more stuff blocking my view and distracting me from informations, that might be more important at a given moment.
Yes, they are just numbers – and numbers alone are meaningless.
All Im showing is there should be a better proportion over professions. Someone that puts a build able to deal an enemies bursts so it hits only for20-25% shouldnt be able to take 80-90% of enemies health with one of his many bursts.
So someone who has tons of ways to avoid getting hit at all shouldn’t be able to hit his enemy too, right?
Btw, did you know that it is possible for a full nomad ranger to burst for 20k+? No? Well nobody runs such a build, because it is just bad for other things than trolling noobs. Numbers alone are not what matter.
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The point is, classes have different mechanics, you can’t compare only some numbers and ignore everything else. Warriors had always those hard hitting burst skills on top of highest base defense, yet they were the weakest class before the last balance patch – for good reasons.
Btw, 4x Mind Wrack has higher coefficient than eviscerate. Mesmer has access to dmg modifier/might/vuln too. Mesmer doesn’t lack burst dmg.
Again Warriors gain sustain by hitting with their burst. Do not get hit by that.
Unfortunately clones/pets can’t dodge and some burst skills cleave, so it is not always possible for some classes to prevent adrenal healing.
Mesmer is still top tier in PvP and WvW roaming nonetheless. Build does matter – a lot. Saying warrior is better in general is simply wrong.
Glyph heal and elite are pretty bad. I would suggest going BM for traited WHaO and SotP. Would solve your problem of lack of out of combat speed too and helps with charging AF. You can replace either MM or Skirm, depending on your personal preference. I would use different traits in MM though.
You can keep glyphes as utilities (i would recommend Glyph of Equality + Glyph of the Tides). But keep in mind that glyphes doesn’t provide much defense, especially if you have to stay mobile and/or against targets with stability and your build is quite glassy. You will have to care a lot about your positioning.
I have seen Mind Wrack hitting for more than 5k per clone too. Mesmer has still high burst. As long we don’t know about the involved builds and circumstances, your screenshot tells not much.
Edit: Found a screenshot of Mind Wrack hitting for 2x 6k in PvP. So in WvW there is even more dmg possible. Requires optimal circumstances though, so not very likely to happen.
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Unload doesn’t prevent you from using skills, interrupts do. Bad comparison. Interrupts are already strong on their own, especially when timed well. Interrupt sigils only encourage mindless interrupts because they reward otherwise useless interrupts like interrupting autoattacks.
Sure, traited shouts are one of the main reasons to take BM. But not only for druid. Best heal, best elite, decent utilities, pretty much every build benefits from those. I’m not saying, the regen for charging AF doesn’t play an important role – it obviousely does. But if another traitline would offer much more than BM, people would take it instead and find another way to charge AF.
I still think that the current way to gain AF is pretty stupid. A zerker build spreading some more or less useless regen gains more AF than a cleric druid healing the whole team for 4k with waterfield + staff 3. Doesn’t make much sense.
Making AF gain dependent on the actual amount of healing instead of healing ticks would solve this problem. Healing/support focused builds could still charge AF quite well, for other builds it would become harder. I would be fine with this, if non-druid build were viable, but i know many people hate the idea of focusing on healing to get the most out of druid.
Both NM and BM offer offense and defense. Which is imo the main reason, why those 2 traitlines are meta.
A ranger has more ways to gain regen, you don’t need shouts. But shouts offer the best heal + elite, so they are the obvious choice, not only for charging AF.
I still think, the “charge per tick” is pretty bad design. It doesn’t make much sense that a power build which spreads some more or less useless regen can charge AF easier than a cleric build which heals the whole team with waterfield + staff 3 for example. I would rather see something where the amount of healing is more important. So it is still aviable on cd for builds which actually focus on healing, but not so easy for more selfish and dps oriented builds to get stunbreak, full condi clear, heals and stealth + superspeed every 10 seconds.
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Why encourage people who want to use a dps build even more to use druid (a healing/support focused specialisation!) instead of something like a dps oriented traitline? Those still exist, you know, even though almost nobody uses them anymore (in PvP).
It is already incredibly easy to gain AF and enter CAF on CD, even on dmg oriented builds without staff, if you build arround it.
It is very easy to proc ancient seeds frequently with lb unless the enemy has very high stab uptime.
The problem with ancient seed is, that it can be easily countered by certain skills/traits, but if your build doesn’t have freqent access to those, you are screwed. Easy to counterbuild, hard to counterplay. Like many things nowadays.
Hmm not sure, pretty much seen warriors, fgs still moving while still being immobed
Warriors have a trait which allows them to remove immob with movement skills. It is an old trait and has nothing to do with the “movement impairing condis doesn’t affect movement skills”-change.
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2.) Movement Skills are not affected by Movement Impairing Conditions anymore,
Only applys to cripple and chill, not to immob.