Guild Wars 2

Jana.6831:

SA isn’t the problem, /P offhand is (either coupled with D mainhand or with Bound).
I wish after 4 years you guys would finally get it.

All the text, the replies and carefully articulated writing and this is what you take away because SA was mentioned offhandedly because it helps contribute to stealth stacking in DP?

After 4 years I would hope you could make more effort, I might not agree with whatever you will end up saying but there’s more to be said than SA isn’t the problem.

Amaimon.7823:

I know this is probably a sore subject, but lately i’ve been very bothered by the use of stealth by rangers, thieves, and sometimes engineers/mesmers, the latter not being very bad, but the prior being a thorn in my eye.
Rangers with shadowscales, and thieves will look for a lone roamer in wvw or pvp, and engage. Now, normally this sounds like a soumd tactic.
But especially in the case of thieves, he spams stealth. I cant land a single hit on him, because they strike, re-hide, strike, re-hide, endlessly. Its a slow and dreadfull way to surely kill someone. You just outlast their healing skills while constantly stealthing, and if you somehow underestimated your enemy, you just stealth again and run away.

Now, my point is not to complain about the stealth mechanic itself, but rather, the fact they dont sacrifice anything for it. Thieves flash and dash around without a vare, still dealing extremely high damage. “Back in my day” in games, you had to choose between prowess and survivability, or conditions, or utility, cant have everything. And once your downed its game over, because they can execute you from stealth.

And before you shout git gud and use CC, i have plenty of CC, but the great majority requires a target, which is a pretty hard thing to do since thieves can only be targeted for a split second. What im requesting is more basic;
More sacrifice of damage when you run a lot of stealth, and a longer channeling time when executing from stealth.
Your opinion?

The only thing I really agree with is that stealth is not fun to fight when it’s being used constantly. Whether this be PU+pledge mesmers, bound/SA/stealth camping thieves, druids and the constant stealth or any upcoming combos.

While I also in some ways agree about not giving up anything for stealth I think it’s more that stealth is so strong that it essentially becomes a defacto choice over many other options. This causes the illusion (ha mesmer joke) of very little investment when it’s more accurate to say they invest a fair amount but it allows them to prevent being hit thus requiring less investment in cleanses and other defences.

The original concept of stealth was that it was limited in duration and longer duration came with drawbacks like long channels like Mass Invis, requiring lots of blasts in smoke fields which also required specific less optimal combat skills with engineers or sitting in a circle like shadow refuge.

Sadly the game is nowhere near what it was at launch and frankly stealth as a mechanic has in my opinion been allowed to become far stronger now that durations and applications have increased.

I may not agree with your ideas but I do agree with the spirit of the thread, stealth does need addressing.

Valik Shin.9027:

It call still take a couple hrs to take t3 keep as it is y would people want it to take 4 or 5 hrs like it use to?

Another misconception from those who tend to only zerg. It doesn’t take hours to take a T3 keep, it only takes brains. 7 of us flipped T3 Gankdara bay last week with 3 zergs fighting outside, I’m guessing Gankdara thought it was only tagged from the fighting and never bothered to do a proper check, they paid the price and lost it in 30mins. The only reason it took that long was we hadn’t got full sups and only 100 from the camp.

You can hit a keep with a small force and get all the way into inner, guild catas cost 40 supply and are essentially superiors. 8 people can build 5 with 25 from keeps so hitting that when others are occupied or sneaking into the outer from a rarely assaulted location then porting your zerg in massively reduces the time taken to take it.

Same with T3 towers, have a big zerg and a small group assault 1 each, bonus if you pair it with the other server so they have to choose.

Valik Shin.9027:

apharma.3741:

Valik Shin.9027:

apharma.3741:

Another QoL improvement for shield gens would be for them to be removed from the game or make them stationary seige on towers and keeps.

Too many times you see a map blob hiding under 4 of these things preventing any form of disable while building 6 super catas. They block every way to defend an objective short of stealth disabling from behind where you’re likely to die. Even then it doesn’t buy you much or any time at all.

Shield gens block cannon, AC, treb and ballista fire, they are too good when stacked.

You need shield gens to be able to assult heavily defended objective. Otherwise you get the old way which is treb from max range and cutoff all supply route until they finely run out 3 hrs later

Spoken like a true zergling.

Repeated attacks while draining their supply and controlling camps is how you topple keeps, which is how a siege actually works.

Isn’t that basicly what I said other than attacking from long range rather than close range where you have to deal with God knows how many ac

No, with shield gens and catas you render ACs, cannons, ballista, basically every single part of defence in a keep or tower obsolete and at close to minimum range you get through much faster. Catas cost significantly less than trebs and the time taken for a treb to take down a wall is significantly higher.

So no, it isn’t even close to what you said as trebbing requires a much more sustained assault against a heavily fortified structure as opposed to the current blob and rush tactic that takes maybe 3 mins tops to get through a T3 wall. When you consider scout reports and time taken for an equal sized group to stop what they’re doing, get out of combat, WP over, group up and get there you’ve already lost whatever it is. Trebbing with a blob also leaves that server vulnerable to being attacked themselves, if you treb from a nearby tower you can leave smaller numbers to defend trebs and the main blob defends whatever it is, especially if you prebuilt seige.

Before we start with invuln walls, they have a cool down and some servers like FSP have people pulling them anything from 5-10 mins before zerg rushing.

Valik Shin.9027:

apharma.3741:

Another QoL improvement for shield gens would be for them to be removed from the game or make them stationary seige on towers and keeps.

Too many times you see a map blob hiding under 4 of these things preventing any form of disable while building 6 super catas. They block every way to defend an objective short of stealth disabling from behind where you’re likely to die. Even then it doesn’t buy you much or any time at all.

Shield gens block cannon, AC, treb and ballista fire, they are too good when stacked.

You need shield gens to be able to assult heavily defended objective. Otherwise you get the old way which is treb from max range and cutoff all supply route until they finely run out 3 hrs later

Spoken like a true zergling.

Repeated attacks while draining their supply and controlling camps is how you topple keeps, which is how a siege actually works.

Another QoL improvement for shield gens would be for them to be removed from the game or make them stationary seige on towers and keeps.

Too many times you see a map blob hiding under 4 of these things preventing any form of disable while building 6 super catas. They block every way to defend an objective short of stealth disabling from behind where you’re likely to die. Even then it doesn’t buy you much or any time at all.

Shield gens block cannon, AC, treb and ballista fire, they are too good when stacked.

Wolfric.9380:

yanniell.1236:

There’s only one thing left to they to do: solo queue only.

While i love to pair with someone (fried or new player that might become a friend …) and that social aspect should not be ignored, this will solve a bunch of problems ….

So i think they need multiple Q´s and game modes. While 2:2 might be to much change from balance focues, 3:3, 4:4 and 5:5 modes might be possible.

GW2 doesn’t have the player base to support so many queues. Best to have 5 man be automated tournaments, 2v2 and solo ranked only or solo only once you reach platinum/legend as others said 2 seasons ago.

Double energy /cry

Still one of the better WvW mesmers I’ve seen but then highlight reels are always biased, does Scarlet need to be so slaty though or is it a public shaming of gankers?

babazhook.6805:

apharma.3741:

Choppy.4183:

babazhook.6805:

The suggestion the gap in mobility between them and other classes along with them being compensated by giving more ability to survive in Zergs is doing exactly that and one you made. It very much like people wanting to “normalize” builds in WvW via an amulet system.

I can’t speak for others, but you’ve misunderstood what I’ve said.

Choppy.4183:

All I was saying is that I see room to restore balance to the Force here. To keep thieves as a top class in small scale but still shaving into some of these aspects that give even mediocre players plenty of covers for bad play, and otherwise increasing the risk factor to better reflect the reward.

In addition, I’d like to see it get some more love to it’s more fun to play outside of small scale. It’s received some compared to the old days, but there’s room for more. That said, I’ve banged this drum before. My only reason for bringing it up in this conversation (which isn’t about that) is because people sometimes interpret calls for nerfs to thieves’ small scale combat game as a general claim that thieves are easy god mode at all times. I don’t think that that’s true, and I’d be surprised if anyone else with any time spent playing the game would either.

I’m fully comfortable with thieves being the most mobile class in the game, and they’ve always been so. But the extent to which they are now, relative to all other classes, puts it in a different league to the point that the risk:reward balance is way off in wvw. This is exacerbated by the newly HoT acquired defenses to being locked down and otherwise when they do choose to engage.

Similarly, I’m fine with thieves being less useful in terms of team support or in a zerg, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them getting a bump there to support broader utility for the class either. I agree with your previous post that HoT did indeed improve things for thieves on this front though.

But, no, I’ve no interest in homogenizing all classes, and I don’t have an issue with the general concept Anet has going for thieves either.

To expand upon this, HoT only did 2 things for preventing counters to thief.

1. Hot brought UC and thus complete immunity almost to soft CC which used to be a way to deal with the mobility gap between thieves and every other class.

2. As you and many others mentioned bandits defence which was on an even shorter cool down at HoT launch but still with trait is one of the lowest cool down if not the lowest cool down block in the game.

Thief since HoT has received numerous buffs right across the board as many players went from thief to rev as it offered a generally similar experience but better. They then massively nerfed Rev in some ways but buffed thief auto attacks to be some of if not the highest there are like for like. They then buffed signet of agility however only nerfed the dodge aspect in PvP where daredevil endurance gain was already considered far too much. Finally we had the buffs to shortbow, a weapon every thief already used for mobility, giving it more ranged cleave potential and much more damage.

I am all for the buffs to signet of agility and for the shortbow buffs as they were rather lack luster however many classes have been unilaterally nerfed while thief seems to only be nerfed in PvP mostly.

What this has done over time made thief the top dog for mobility while also giving it buffs to make it more useful in other areas, cleansing 3 conditions to allies with the signet and one of the best punishments for downstate with choking gas with 3 thieves about, as well as excellent cleave. This has only serves to widen the gap between how good a roamer thief is vs most other classes while making sure most mistakes aren’t punished while having increased their use when fighting scales up.

@babazhook, guard, rev, ele and necro are all excellent team fighters or zerging classes I wouldn’t ever call them homogeneous. I wouldn’t even use that word to describe the way different classes heal either mostly.

Bandits defense is NOT the lowest cooldown block in the game. There a number of blocks at 15 seconds and less available to other classes. Added to this when making such statements one has to consider the total NUMBER of blocks available to a given class. If class A has one single block that lasts 1.5 seconds every 15 seconds and class B has 5 seperate blocks that last 3 seconds and come around every 25 seconds Class B has much higher block access.

Actually there’s only 3 skills with a lower cool down on block and all of those only block a single attack and then have you stuck on a weird counter animation and 2 of them make you very vulnerable when doing the animation.

I mean if you really want to start saying you have to consider other blocks relative to the class you should also consider all defences accessable to the class as going on a tyraid about how guards have multiple 2s blocks on 25-30s cool downs paints a one-sided biased picture.

None however are stunbreaks out of the other blocks and bandits defence is also one of the lowest cool down stunbreaks in the game also. It’s that part that many refer to when they talk about the inability to punish poor play.

Choppy.4183:

babazhook.6805:

The suggestion the gap in mobility between them and other classes along with them being compensated by giving more ability to survive in Zergs is doing exactly that and one you made. It very much like people wanting to “normalize” builds in WvW via an amulet system.

I can’t speak for others, but you’ve misunderstood what I’ve said.

Choppy.4183:

All I was saying is that I see room to restore balance to the Force here. To keep thieves as a top class in small scale but still shaving into some of these aspects that give even mediocre players plenty of covers for bad play, and otherwise increasing the risk factor to better reflect the reward.

In addition, I’d like to see it get some more love to it’s more fun to play outside of small scale. It’s received some compared to the old days, but there’s room for more. That said, I’ve banged this drum before. My only reason for bringing it up in this conversation (which isn’t about that) is because people sometimes interpret calls for nerfs to thieves’ small scale combat game as a general claim that thieves are easy god mode at all times. I don’t think that that’s true, and I’d be surprised if anyone else with any time spent playing the game would either.

I’m fully comfortable with thieves being the most mobile class in the game, and they’ve always been so. But the extent to which they are now, relative to all other classes, puts it in a different league to the point that the risk:reward balance is way off in wvw. This is exacerbated by the newly HoT acquired defenses to being locked down and otherwise when they do choose to engage.

Similarly, I’m fine with thieves being less useful in terms of team support or in a zerg, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them getting a bump there to support broader utility for the class either. I agree with your previous post that HoT did indeed improve things for thieves on this front though.

But, no, I’ve no interest in homogenizing all classes, and I don’t have an issue with the general concept Anet has going for thieves either.

To expand upon this, HoT only did 2 things for preventing counters to thief.

1. Hot brought UC and thus complete immunity almost to soft CC which used to be a way to deal with the mobility gap between thieves and every other class.

2. As you and many others mentioned bandits defence which was on an even shorter cool down at HoT launch but still with trait is one of the lowest cool down if not the lowest cool down block in the game.

Thief since HoT has received numerous buffs right across the board as many players went from thief to rev as it offered a generally similar experience but better. They then massively nerfed Rev in some ways but buffed thief auto attacks to be some of if not the highest there are like for like. They then buffed signet of agility however only nerfed the dodge aspect in PvP where daredevil endurance gain was already considered far too much. Finally we had the buffs to shortbow, a weapon every thief already used for mobility, giving it more ranged cleave potential and much more damage.

I am all for the buffs to signet of agility and for the shortbow buffs as they were rather lack luster however many classes have been unilaterally nerfed while thief seems to only be nerfed in PvP mostly.

What this has done over time made thief the top dog for mobility while also giving it buffs to make it more useful in other areas, cleansing 3 conditions to allies with the signet and one of the best punishments for downstate with choking gas with 3 thieves about, as well as excellent cleave. This has only serves to widen the gap between how good a roamer thief is vs most other classes while making sure most mistakes aren’t punished while having increased their use when fighting scales up.

@babazhook, guard, rev, ele and necro are all excellent team fighters or zerging classes I wouldn’t ever call them homogeneous. I wouldn’t even use that word to describe the way different classes heal either mostly.

As mentioned above, you can trait to make it an 80s cool down, anything lower for such a high damage AoE would be extremely broken.

Maybe if you want to talk about silly long cool downs for effects you could look at timewarp or even Moa without CS and yes I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been moa’s and died.

TheDevice.2751:

As far as pvp, Gravity Well is just all around better lol.

The damage is comparable even thouh GW is more power-based. The cc’s are real and almost insure the final pulse to hit.

Plaguelands pulses 4 through 8 don’t even do damage. And you take 2 stacks of bleed.

The kicker? Gravity well has 90 second cooldown while plaguelands has 120.

You tell me Anet isn’t biased as kitten XD.

Plaguelands will do way more damage in a condi build if everything hits than gravity well in a power build. The reason gravity well is perceived as better is that if you get locked in it without a stunbreak or instant cast teleport then you’re free to be wailed upon for 3s which is a long time in PvP.

Drop plaguelands on a downed enemy and that guy is never getting rezzed, no way. The enemy team would have to burn too many cool downs and take too much damage.

That’s without pointing out the extremely obvious: Not all skills are designed to be equally as popular in each game mode. Dropping plaguelands in WvW before you go down or before the enemy pushes into you can result in you killing several enemy players especially with deathly chill.

Justine.6351:

apharma.3741:

Justine.6351:

Choppy.4183:

Justine.6351:

Ya these are the typical thieves I run into,
https://youtu.be/gLYW9c30fdE
Not really seeing anything OP from them.

If they take damage,
You can kill it.

I mean, sure, when you’re getting 9k CoR on them, 4k ranged autos, and have aoe’s and evade skills.

A smart power thief would recognize your output and stay away from you entirely unless they see an opportunity, and there’s really nothing you could do about it. Now, were you fighting any condi thieves in that video?

A couple.

A great thief would have killed me 1v1. I mean it’s a hammer rev lol. It’s like bearbow without the bear. But all the smart/great ones fight with others to capitalize on their ability to +1/gank. And in those cases again hammer rev, just wait for them to commit to a gank and drop CoR on them.

Thieves are only OP if you are running a slow facetanking build. And in those cases all you have to do is /sit until they give up and go home. People who chase them from XvX with stuff like reapers and staff ele get wrecked because they don’t recognize the scenario, baited.

I dunno, I play power mes, if I don’t one shot the thief then it’s generally a losing battle for me. I mean I 100-0 plenty of thieves and will try to punish bad plays wherever I can whenever I can against a thief but much of that has gone now. It’s even worse when you get 2 of them focus you in a small team fight without someone on TS ready to cover you or support you.

Poor ones will dodge spam and teleport away till cool downs are back up, it’s not that big an issue except they can reset the fight when they burn your longer cool downs like distortion. Don’t even get me started on core mesmer, without chaos it’s an uphill fight. I come across plenty of bad thieves but when you get someone who has either got a ton of macros doing a lot of the combos for them or just spent more than a day learning the class it becomes much harder to deal with.

I agree with Choppy though, it is just silly atm for roaming and needs bringing down considerably while it’s group play needs bringing up by the same amount.

I think it’s thief that counters power mes idk. Some nights when raiding with strm and I’m on reaper it triggers me when we don’t have an answer to thief gankers so hard that I get on rev and go on a potato chip rampage.

Yeah had that happen a few times last match up, 2 thieves constantly attacking the person at the back of our small group. They couldn’t stick around if we turned on them but locking them down was pointless due to bandits defence. Told people not to fight and just keep going, in the end 1 person thought he could win and I told him we won’t help, he died and we were so far away by the time they picked him apart they couldn’t find us.

Necro doesn’t have it easy either, core warrior used to have issues, still sort of does without resistance or stab but most run berserker which covers a lot of warriors weakness to thieves.

Justine.6351:

Choppy.4183:

Justine.6351:

Ya these are the typical thieves I run into,
https://youtu.be/gLYW9c30fdE
Not really seeing anything OP from them.

If they take damage,
You can kill it.

I mean, sure, when you’re getting 9k CoR on them, 4k ranged autos, and have aoe’s and evade skills.

A smart power thief would recognize your output and stay away from you entirely unless they see an opportunity, and there’s really nothing you could do about it. Now, were you fighting any condi thieves in that video?

A couple.

A great thief would have killed me 1v1. I mean it’s a hammer rev lol. It’s like bearbow without the bear. But all the smart/great ones fight with others to capitalize on their ability to +1/gank. And in those cases again hammer rev, just wait for them to commit to a gank and drop CoR on them.

Thieves are only OP if you are running a slow facetanking build. And in those cases all you have to do is /sit until they give up and go home. People who chase them from XvX with stuff like reapers and staff ele get wrecked because they don’t recognize the scenario, baited.

I dunno, I play power mes, if I don’t one shot the thief then it’s generally a losing battle for me. I mean I 100-0 plenty of thieves and will try to punish bad plays wherever I can whenever I can against a thief but much of that has gone now. It’s even worse when you get 2 of them focus you in a small team fight without someone on TS ready to cover you or support you.

Poor ones will dodge spam and teleport away till cool downs are back up, it’s not that big an issue except they can reset the fight when they burn your longer cool downs like distortion. Don’t even get me started on core mesmer, without chaos it’s an uphill fight. I come across plenty of bad thieves but when you get someone who has either got a ton of macros doing a lot of the combos for them or just spent more than a day learning the class it becomes much harder to deal with.

I agree with Choppy though, it is just silly atm for roaming and needs bringing down considerably while it’s group play needs bringing up by the same amount.

Justine.6351:

LetoII.3782:

Justine.6351:

schloumou.3982:

Balancing takes place at the ceiling not the floor.

This thread has WvW in the title and is in the WvW subforum. Idk but if Condi reaper is any indication on what level anet balances the game…

Or for that matter, your class dropping 6k ranged autoattacks

My class doesn’t drop 6k ranged autoattacks,
I drop 5k autoattacks occasionally.

If you think playing in condi/bunker meta with glass hammer, using a single 2condi cleanse on a 1sec cast 15sec recharge, is easy feel free to show us the OPness. It’s kind of annoying not having anyone else running it and posting vids to see what others are doing. Yet I could point out 4 Condi reapers on these forums that do regularly make vids. Kind of says something.

Oh I made a hammer rev vid regarding typical thief fights. People think thief teleporting away is rediculous, try running away from shiro lol. Really if you hate thieves make a hammer rev. Will edit/link it to my first post here once it’s uploaded

Well I mean rev hammer is all kinds of broken in sheer damage output as well, the difference is they’re very easy to focus down.

The only thing stopping any QQ about Shiro revs tbh is how insanely weak they are against all forms of condi. Even conditions like weakness, chill/cripple/immob outside of shiro and blind screw over revs far more than most classes atm. I mean they have lots of blocks and evades on very short cool downs, the thing is any condi build or even hybrid/celestial build will absolutely destroy them and their damage doesn’t scale that well when there’s more than 2 people in a fight.

But anyway feef OP plz narf.

The biggest issue is there’s no punishing bad play as dodge, dodge, dodge (signet), dodge, dodge, dodge, (switch to SB) dodge, 555 can take them further away than even portal goes.

Or more realistically you can skip the signet and still end up ooc or at ranges most classes cannot punish you for making a mistake or burning cool downs in a silly fashion. What’s the cool down on dodging 3 times and SB5 away twice? I make it about 10s given a lot of thieves run endurance regen food and will have vigor from steal. A lot of classes can’t keep up with how low some thief cool downs are and bandits defence is an example of extremely poor balancing.

A thiefs biggest enemy is themselves.

Guards and NPCs don’t take a ton of damage from confusion or torment, they can’t attack while moving so they either take the bigger confusion damage hit or the bigger torment, not both.

In terms of build changes, I would switch well of calamity because it does very little for you, signet of illusions to refresh your shatters you should be able to summon disenchanter, weapon phantasm and clone. Shatter them, get all back, shatter again, switch weapon, repeat as needed. Eventually you’ll be at a point where you run out of shatters and that’s where the signet will come in handy.

I personally don’t find disenchanter that useful unless dueling as I get outnumbered more often and play power builds so it’s of limited use to me but it will help with the iReversion change as it’s a phantasm.

Other good options instead of calamity would be decoy, defender, blink or portal depending on the situation, I personally find blink invaluable.

Just to add, many players especially the “true WvW players” don’t actually have level appropriate under water weapons so don’t be afraid to jump into the water and fight. In fact it may pay in your favour in some cases (looking at you Justine and that insanely broken pet rez) as some classes have insanely strong skills underwater that can also target and be used on people near the water.

zealex.9410:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Exedore.6320:

Lordrosicky.5813:

I love the fact this game is dead now, not going to lie.

I told everyone for years that power creep made the game not fun. Guess what…now everyone accepts this as a fact.

Hilarious to see everyone quit. This game isnt fun at all, that is all there is to it. Spam wars 2 where everyone does massive damage whilst being perma invulnerable.

Pretty much. HoT power creep killed any chance GW2 PvP had. What’s more dismaying is that the power creep is still at ridiculous levels nearly 2 years after HoT’s release.

Hot wasnt the main power creep. That was the trait merge patch where they randomly merged all traits.

They got rid of expereinced designers who understood risk and reward and understood how to create a game fun to play with and a game where other people were fun to fight against. They replaced these people’s power with those with no design experience.

Are you sure they kicked the class designers out? I believe they just simply moved them to elite specs 2 after the rework to traits was done and the last elite soec shipped.

Robert Gee is still at Arena Net as far as I know, I know he did a lot on Mesmer, Necro and I think Warrior for HoT and they were all very popular on release. I believe he also worked on the original classes when GW2 was being made but don’t quote me on that.

Cynz.9437:

@Lalainnia.3598: read the posts in the thread. It was clearly stated that if you dodge into shatter you still get hit because due to superspeed clones don’t register dodge.

@apharma.3741: problem with phantasm attack is that it takes time for it to spawn. The channeled spells hitting in stealth works only if you cast spell while you still target the enemy before they go in stealth. By the time phantasm spawns target is in stealth thus AI itself didn’t execute the spell cast yet.

I brought up DH because it is plain bug, it is unintended behavior and it gives plain advantage to the DH player. Same applies to superspeed clones ignoring dodge into shatter. You defending such bug is about as same as defeding DH pulling players into walls. Yes, you do jump to conclusion.
Bottom line, idc how they do it, i just wish they would fix it so dodging into shatter actually did what it supposed to do – avoid getting hit by shatter instead of watching how clones do 180° turn mid of your dodge and run back at you.

It’s not ignoring the dodge nor is it working unintended, the clones don’t spend enough time at the required proximity to you when you use the skills mentioned or UC to register to detonate. This is entirely down to them covering a lot more distance than a simple dodge and why sometimes you will dodge a clone but not another.

An obvious change could be to reduce the distance these evades travel to be the same distance as 1 dodge. That would solve all your problems while also fixing a few funny issues like not being able to dodge or use said skills in SR and other AoE circles. The clones will spend enough time in close proximity to register to detonate and do so.

Edit: About the phantasms, I know why it happens as the phantasm needs a target to use the skill it has but target has disappeared when it is summoned. What I am saying though is that it should be treated as an attack started before going into stealth, when it was summoned. In other words the attack should be linked to whether the target was visible upon summon activation not upon appearance in the world.

Mind you I’ve long been an advocate of removing phantasms as a mechanic anyway.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

apharma.3741:

This is not a bug, they are behaving exactly as programmed and they are not hitting you through evades.

Oh ok then if you say so.

And we never said that they hit through evades. But you still get hit (after dodging) even though you evaded with UC because you were like 2 pixels off or some stupid kitten.

Come on, how is this not unintended behavior? One particular trait acts up when under very specific circumstances? You think a tester from Anet actually ran into this and was like “hey I wrote that requirement!”

I’m actually with Cynz on this one for once, this is very comparable to defending DHs pulling people into walls lol. Neither side did it on purpose (kinda like how I can dodge your shatter but they accidentally still hit me! outplayed, right?), but one side still gets kittened for what would 9/10 times under different circumstances (different dodge trait, different class) times be a solid play.

DH pulling people into walls actively stops them playing as well as putting them in a place they never could reach any other way. This is why I ignored the DH comment as it is in no way related either mechanically or in terms of behaviour to anything being talked about. It was being used as a way to plant the false idea that the way superspeed shatters behave with UC and a few skills is a bug by offering up the situation of DH pull pulling you somewhere no-one should be able to go.

Now had Cynz used DH pull as not respecting evade frames then that would have been a good example and actually been a discussion point. But she didn’t.

For the record I’m all for DH spear respecting dodges and evade frames or at least having a tooltip explicitly stating undodgeable.

I’ve already said about switching the superspeed with swiftness in another post on this same page, it would solve the “issue” at hand while resolving other issues with the shatter mechanic at the moment.

Edit: Found the quote for you.

apharma.3741:

A better solution would be to address the fact shatters don’t actually work without superspeed because of all the movement speed increases given out to everyone and then change superspeed to swiftness. It may not address the issue of not triggering the detonation but at least you’ll have a second to dodge properly or just outrun them because those skills will put you further away from the shatters and you have the same speed.

Also yes, Cynz said clones ignore dodges in a post. I mean I don’t think I’m jumping to conclusions by taking that as hitting through evades right?

Hey guys, what was an eles role in season 3?

Healbot you say?

What is its role now?

Healbot you say?

Do they have any other builds that compare?

Ow stop throwing stuff at me!

Repeat with all classes.

Cynz.9437:

apharma.3741:

Cynz.9437:

I think you two really don’t understand issue of intended and unintended behavior. Mes not being able to summon phantasm because of stealth is intended behavior same way why thief cannot interrupt mes while mes is using invul. Same way why (most) channeled and delayed spells hit thieves in stealth anyway.
Clones ignoring dodge and withdraw because of superspeed is not an intended behavior (same goes for downstate bug). Once again, your only argument for the bug is balance between mes and thief. Bugs are bugs (these specific bugs are also game changing in the fight, it is not just some typo), they should be fixed and balance should not be based on it.

I brought DHs up because this is literary same thing: DHs can abuse spear to pull people into walls thus gaining advantage, it is not intended behavior but by your logic it shouldn’t get fixed because DHs don’t do so well in tourneys. Or thieves should be able to attack through blinds and blocks because DHs hardcounter them!

I can’t believe people are actually defending exploiting of the bugs because QQ Anet balanced classes around counters.

This isn’t about DH please stay on topic.

I guess you’ve never summoned a phantasm as a thief goes into stealth eh? Attack is used before stealth begins yet phantasm just sits there like pudding. That is what a lot of people mean.

Once again the shatters do not ignore dodge they don’t hit you while in an evade frame they hit you at the beginning or end but not during. I have yet to see anyone post a video of them hitting in an evade frame. This isn’t a bug, this is one of those weird interactions that happens.

Btw I never justified it by thief countering mesmer just that thief has so many active defences that do work on mesmer I found sad you even say evades are the main defence of thief in this topic.

Regarding DHs: example (from thesaurus):
noun
1.
one of a number of things, or a part of something, taken to show the character of the whole:
This painting is an example of his early work.
2.
a pattern or model, as of something to be imitated or avoided:
to set a good example.
3.
an instance serving for illustration; specimen:
The case histories gave carefully detailed examples of this disease.
4.
an instance illustrating a rule or method, as a mathematical problem proposed for solution.
5.
an instance, especially of punishment, serving as a warning to others:
Public executions were meant to be examples to the populace.
6.
a precedent; parallel case.

Wait, so you want phantasms to actually attack target through stealth? Am i reading his right?

If i dodge into shatter say on warrior, they explode and disappear. If i dodge same way on thief into shatter, they just run after you instead of registering the dodge process. it is NOT intended behavior. If dodge doesn’t actually do what it supposed to do just because of 2 traits interaction then it is a bug.

Actually you did justify it with mes vs thief balance, just read your previous posts again. I find it sad that you still attempt to defend bugs.

I’m saying the attack that was used before stealth should connect if you go into stealth during the cast. With phantasms normally having a 1s cast time it happens a lot so them actually doing the attack they were summoned to do before stealth should still go through. If it was any other skill on any other class it would still hit someone going into stealth even when they have been in stealth for ½s.

Yes, if you dodge into it as a warrior they explode and you take no damage, hence why I said what I said. They are not ignoring dodges like you keep claiming if they were this would be an issue on all classes. The reason this is an issue on a few skills and UC is because you move too fast through them to register as hitting. If you remember clone behaviour before HoT you’ll remember they kind of stutter before shattering to execute the attack once in range. The few skills and UC are in and out of this range too fast for it to register most of the time.

This is not a bug, they are behaving exactly as programmed and they are not hitting you through evades.

Please do quote me in this thread where I say something shouldn’t be addressed because of mesmer vs thief balance. I have said some of the issues here are not what I would consider high priority but nothing more.

Cynz.9437:

I think you two really don’t understand issue of intended and unintended behavior. Mes not being able to summon phantasm because of stealth is intended behavior same way why thief cannot interrupt mes while mes is using invul. Same way why (most) channeled and delayed spells hit thieves in stealth anyway.
Clones ignoring dodge and withdraw because of superspeed is not an intended behavior (same goes for downstate bug). Once again, your only argument for the bug is balance between mes and thief. Bugs are bugs (these specific bugs are also game changing in the fight, it is not just some typo), they should be fixed and balance should not be based on it.

I brought DHs up because this is literary same thing: DHs can abuse spear to pull people into walls thus gaining advantage, it is not intended behavior but by your logic it shouldn’t get fixed because DHs don’t do so well in tourneys. Or thieves should be able to attack through blinds and blocks because DHs hardcounter them!

I can’t believe people are actually defending exploiting of the bugs because QQ Anet balanced classes around counters.

This isn’t about DH please stay on topic.

I guess you’ve never summoned a phantasm as a thief goes into stealth eh? Attack is used before stealth begins yet phantasm just sits there like pudding. That is what a lot of people mean.

Once again the shatters do not ignore dodge they don’t hit you while in an evade frame they hit you at the beginning or end but not during. I have yet to see anyone post a video of them hitting in an evade frame. This isn’t a bug, this is one of those weird interactions that happens.

Btw I never justified it by thief countering mesmer just that thief has so many active defences that do work on mesmer I found sad you even say evades are the main defence of thief in this topic.

Cynz.9437:

apharma.3741:

Cynz.9437:

apharma.3741:

Cynz.9437:

The only issue i have with mes atm is that chrono allows AI run at light speed which results in them ignoring dodge even if you dodge into shatter making dodge obsolete in such scenario.

We’ve been over this many times, it’s not an issue born from superspeed on shatter it’s from the increased dodge range on UC. Even then with proper timing you don’t get hit by the shatter, it doesn’t make dodging obsolete it just means you need better timing.

So you actually defend the fact that thief cannot use withdraw or dash to avoid shatter effectively? Then i want dagger attacks go through invuls and blocks just because.

You’re just being petty now Cynz.

I don’t think it’s high on the priority of things to address about skills tbh especially when it’s on only 2 skills and 1 trait.

A better solution would be to address the fact shatters don’t actually work without superspeed because of all the movement speed increases given out to everyone and then change superspeed to swiftness. It may not address the issue of not triggering the detonation but at least you’ll have a second to dodge properly or just outrun them because those skills will put you further away from the shatters and you have the same speed.

And i would prefer if you stayed away from personal attacks and remained by discussion.
Point is, all Anet left thieves for defense is dodges, stealth is eh…… yeah, let’s not go there. So the main defense of the class is absolutely useless because of…. well, how should we put it nicely… oversight? And it is ok because core mes can’t land shatter?
I mean at this rate we can defend DHs pulling people into walls because DH is not used in tourneys kek.
I understand the problem with shatters not landing sometimes when clones don’t run like Flash across the map but this is different topic and you are welcome to post suggestions how to fix it without relying on exploits/bugs.

(Oh and as side note, did you know that downstate AI from mes ignore stealth completely and continue to attack you? I wonder how you would defend that <pulls popcorn>.)

Just calling you out on it Cynz, what else would you call asking for your attacks to suddenly negate defences used by every single class because one trait on one class all of a sudden doesn’t interact well with 2 skills and a trait?

Everyone that’s spent any time fighting mesmers knows stealth shuts down mesmers hard and they have no reveal mechanic, best they can do is try to interrupt it. Someone already mentioned phantasms don’t spawn if you’re in stealth. How do you justify a skill not working at all because someone is in stealth but otherwise would be hit by every other class/skill in the game?

I love how you think dodges are the main defence of thieves as if unblockable blind, interrupt and teleports aren’t a thing. A lot of these work wonders against mesmers and as I mentioned stealth works wonders still. Don’t bring up every other class please, this is mesmers we are talking about and against mesmers pretty much your entire kitten nal of defences works.

You’re now bringing up DHs and other mechanics to justify what you say in some kind of I don’t want to say straw man arguement but it’s increasingly getting there. Take your own advise and stay on topic.

Mesmer clone hitting in stealth while downed again, shouldn’t happen but I can think of 100 things more deserving of changing than this. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone but you complain about that, ever. Once again the sly attack with pulls popcorn, boring.

Edit: Forgot to mention I would legit switch the clone spawn and random teleport for thieves ground targeted teleport. I’d switch it for many downstate skills as 90% of the time it teleports you into more danger.

Cynz.9437:

apharma.3741:

Cynz.9437:

The only issue i have with mes atm is that chrono allows AI run at light speed which results in them ignoring dodge even if you dodge into shatter making dodge obsolete in such scenario.

We’ve been over this many times, it’s not an issue born from superspeed on shatter it’s from the increased dodge range on UC. Even then with proper timing you don’t get hit by the shatter, it doesn’t make dodging obsolete it just means you need better timing.

So you actually defend the fact that thief cannot use withdraw or dash to avoid shatter effectively? Then i want dagger attacks go through invuls and blocks just because.

You’re just being petty now Cynz.

I don’t think it’s high on the priority of things to address about skills tbh especially when it’s on only 2 skills and 1 trait.

A better solution would be to address the fact shatters don’t actually work without superspeed because of all the movement speed increases given out to everyone and then change superspeed to swiftness. It may not address the issue of not triggering the detonation but at least you’ll have a second to dodge properly or just outrun them because those skills will put you further away from the shatters and you have the same speed.

Here’s a novel idea, why not have dye channels on the fractal weapons then you can pick any colour you want for the particle effects etc.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

apharma.3741:

Cynz.9437:

The only issue i have with mes atm is that chrono allows AI run at light speed which results in them ignoring dodge even if you dodge into shatter making dodge obsolete in such scenario.

We’ve been over this many times, it’s not an issue born from superspeed on shatter it’s from the increased dodge range on UC. Even then with proper timing you don’t get hit by the shatter, it doesn’t make dodging obsolete it just means you need better timing.

Haha if the l2timing argument failed to defend acro staff and condi thieves from nerfs, I guess it’s totally viable for mesmers! Btw this is not only with UC, this also affects roll-away skills like withdraw and riposting shadows.

Remember when landing shatters was actually skillful and not just press your f buttons? Then again I also remember when thief’s best PvP DPS rotation wasn’t shadowshot autos. Games just kittened.

Yeah I remember those days when shatters detonated outside of 240 range might have potentially hit 50% of the time. Now without superspeed they hit 0% of the time, heck I remember playing core mesmer and all shatters were countered by simply moving in the opposite direction if not detonated on spawn as post HoT nearly everyone has permanent swiftness or other movement speed increases.

The thing is no other class has any issue dodging shatters as you dodge into them. The only reason this is an issue on thief is because they have such rediculous travel distances in the evades that they just travel straight past the shatters without them registering to detonate sometimes.

Cynz.9437:

The only issue i have with mes atm is that chrono allows AI run at light speed which results in them ignoring dodge even if you dodge into shatter making dodge obsolete in such scenario.

We’ve been over this many times, it’s not an issue born from superspeed on shatter it’s from the increased dodge range on UC. Even then with proper timing you don’t get hit by the shatter, it doesn’t make dodging obsolete it just means you need better timing.

daw.4923:

Ithilwen.1529:

Losing to a Mesmer is NOT cause for nerfs. If anything, Mesmer is seriously weak against people who know how to play.

thats why N1 in pvp leaderboards is mesmer?

i allways smile,when i compare war shield vs mesmers. its just only proof you need,this game have no ballance what so ever.
more hp,2x longer invu time,3x more evades and blink. any skill usable 2x in row, even skills on 120 sec cd…. like common guys…. common.

Now I’m all for calling people out on BS, so I’ll call you out on yours.

Do actually compare warrior shield to mesmer shield.

Warrior:
3s block on a 25s CD. Can trait to be 20s
2s stun on a 20s CD with a ¾s cast. Can trait to be 16s.

Mesmer:
1½s block on a 35s CD which summons a dodgeable phantasm. Can get a second 1½s block to use within 10s however cool down starts after 2nd block.
1s stun on a 40s CD (30s if you catch the wave again) with ¾s cast. Can give a 2s stun in total but also has no target limit. Also grants quickness and blocks projectiles.

Now if I’m being honest here it’s very hard to compare tides of time because it does so much but also has double the cool down of you don’t catch it again. The mesmer can also reduce the cool down on echo of memory down to a more manageable 28s base with iCelerity in illusions and alacrity can take 2-4s off it too.

As for the rest of the stuff that’s kind of where it’s hard to compare, warrior has more base armour so takes 10% less damage as well as having insane health regen without having to invest in healing power, something that was nerfed heavily on mesmer.

Endure pain reduction and the cast time increases for shield bash were very savage I’ll say that but now you have 2s physical damage immunity every 30s as a utility which is about on par with mesmers distortion as well as having much evades and plenty of blocks in the GS mace/shield build.

Ultimately it’s hard to make a comparison as both classes are fundamentally designed differently but I guess we can just look at the bolded claim and file what you put under M for misinformed.

Don’t get me wrong I would love to have Whiteside Ridge back as a proud bronze server again but prime time queues in T1 EU for Piken/WSR barely make double figures.

Maybe it’s different on other servers but except when the pips were added I haven’t seen major queues outside the reset bulge and even that isn’t silly anymore with 2 borderlands having no queue all evening.

Junkpile.7439:

So they wanna have GvG against blobbaddon’s mouth pro guilds or what you trying to say?

I dunno, I don’t give a rat’s backside about GvGs or that scene just that they don’t care about dying.

From what I hear many of the Piken Square guilds left for Vabbi, these are the ones that don’t care about PPT, the ones wanting fights and to GvG.

Know who doesn’t give 2 kittens about K/D ratio? GvG guilds.

You also have UW which means you have SALT and Teapot dragging down your ratio!

Edit: I also forgot about outnumbered, it doesn’t count towards scoring if you die outnumbered but no idea of it counts to K/D ratio. With many chasing outnumbered to get extra pips and no impact on the score many are alright being lemmings when they have the buff as there’s no consequence other than the usual GH kitten measuring that’s been around for years.

That bandwagon, moves to Vabbi for easy wins, loses the final chest for the week. Classic.

I take it back, WSR being linked with Piken is the worst, the absolute worst!

/cry.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

Gonna evaluate this for those who seem to be defending the algorithm.

RED team
first duo: 1790 + 1750
second duo: 1700 + 1740
solo: 1680
avg: 1732

BLUE team
duo: 1620 + 1510
solos: 1710 + 1630 + 1510
avg: 1596

So when I read this thread, here is what I see:

• Algorithm takes 3x duo ques and looks at them mathematically. We are told it is supposed to create mathematically balanced matches or so they say.
• Algorithm decides to take the two mathematically strongest duo que teams and stack them together. These are not only the stronger duos but these duos are also comprised of the highest rated players out of the 10 players in the que. That right there alone, doesn’t make any sense mathematically.
• Then it takes the 2nd highest rated solo player, which is only 20 points away from the 1st “virtually the same rating” and stacks it together with the two strongest duos. The red team has been created.
• Now it takes clearly the weaker of the duos, which is ranked significantly lower than the two stronger duos, and puts it on a team with all of the weaker solo players. Blue team is created.

The algorithm, which we are told is designed to create mathematically balanced splits, given the rated numbers in the que, should have done something more like this:
RED
1st Duo – 1790 + 1750
Solo – 1710
Solo – 1630
Solo – 1510
Avg – 1678

BLUE
2nd Duo – 1700 + 1740
3rd Duo – 1620 + 1510
Solo – 1732
Avg – 1660

That makes much more sense in every way, from the perspective of mathematics and balance. The algorithm however, did not do that. That system designed around creating mathematically balanced splits, decided to stack every strongest player on the red team.

I mean, when I look at this, I don’t understand why there are people trying to defend the algorithm here. Whether it was match manipulation, server favoritism or a burp within the algorithm, something is wrong with that match making. It clearly chose to stack the red team instead of make a balanced match.

As I said in the other thread, those defending the algorithm or at least saying it’s not as out of line as people keep claiming didn’t have this info when they made their comments. I’m guessing you were in that game or did you log in just now and grab each players rating?

It would be nice if people posted a complete breakdown of the match, like you just did, rather than the half truths and misinformation we commonly get. The guys original post missed out most of that information and for that he should be stripped naked and forced to walk the streets home.

Shame.
Shame.
Shame.

Ok maybe not that but this is what ANet talks about when they say good feedback vs bad feedback.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

I don’t think the time of day, his and CJ’s rating or mains/alts has anything to do with what we are looking at here unless there is something that I seem to be completely misunderstanding. Let’s take a look at this again:

RED team
first duo: 1790 + 1750
second duo: 1700 + 1740
solo: 1680
avg: 1732

BLUE team
duo: 1620 + 1510
solos: 1710 + 1630 + 1510
avg: 1596

So when I read this thread, here is what I see:

• Algorithm takes 3x duo ques and looks at them mathematically. We are told it is supposed to create mathematically balanced matches or so they say.
• Algorithm decides to take the two mathematically strongest duo que teams and stack them together. These are not only the stronger duos but these duos are also comprised of the highest rated players out of the 10 players in the que. That right there alone, doesn’t make any sense mathematically.
• Then it takes the 2nd highest rated solo player, which is only 20 points away from the 1st “virtually the same rating” and stacks it together with the two strongest duos. The red team has been created.
• Now it takes clearly the weaker of the duos, which is ranked significantly lower than the two stronger duos, and puts it on a team with all of the weaker solo players. Blue team is created.

The algorithm, which we are told is designed to create mathematically balanced splits, given the rated numbers in the que, should have done something more like this:
RED
1st Duo – 1790 + 1750
Solo – 1710
Solo – 1630
Solo – 1510
Avg – 1678

BLUE
2nd Duo – 1700 + 1740
3rd Duo – 1620 + 1510
Solo – 1732
Avg – 1660

That makes much more sense in every way, from the perspective of mathematics and balance. The algorithm however, did not do that. That system designed around creating mathematically balanced splits, decided to stack every strongest player on the red team.

I mean, when I look at this, I don’t understand why there are people trying to defend the algorithm here. Whether it was match manipulation, server favoritism or a burp within the algorithm, something is wrong with that match making.

If those are indeed the ratings of the players at that time then yes the latter way of making each team have an average of ~1660 should have been done. However when I wrote my post about the event I didn’t have all the user rating and the guy certainly didn’t mention the ratings at the time in his original post, the one you linked. Still a rating difference of 140 should not on paper make a complete blow out match.

How often does the match maker do this though?

The guy said it happened twice in the season, now I don’t know how much he’s played or the sampling but everyone is complaining about these match ups but don’t mention the ones that were mathematically balanced.

I’ll agree that for that match something could be looked at, doesn’t the match maker make a team of 5 then make another team as close as it can to the average rating of the other? If that’s the case it could instead change to a system of getting 10 players in a certain range and creating 2 teams which should make for less anomalies like the example.

You’ll still get the odd game with a 140 average rating difference every now and then but as I said, if it’s not a common occurrence people need to accept it’s good enough.

Ithilwen.1529:

I agree. If there are two relatively high ranked players and several medium-to-low; The proper response would be to divide the two high rankers, one on each team.

This would annoy those players. They often feel entitled to have a team that , in there judgement, is of suitable skill level. It would be much fairer though .

This however arbitrarily condemns one of them to lose a ton of rating while both have a frustrating game where their team runs around like headless chickens. Now if one of them wasn’t going to lose 20-40 rating g for this loss in this fair match up they might play a few games and leave when too frustrated. However if they lose 30 rating for playing just so Mr Pleberino has a more balanced team (where both teams behave equally clueless to the high rated players) they will usually log off after 1-2 games.

That isn’t the situation anyone wants, we want people to play and stay playing.

Cap losses and gains on rating and some small tweaks to the loss/gain rating system will make it more barrable for many. As I pointed out, many complaints aren’t at the match itself if you read them, it’s at how much they lose because of the match. Great example is kdaddy’s post above, it’s about rating gain and loss as much as it’s about clueless people rotating.

Also it’s more fair or fairer, you never say more fairer.

It’s funny how no-one can tell if this is true or not, a few years ago we’d have all said it was a troll. Now after the amount of match fixing and exploiting in NA no-one can tell.

I can see how this could be a thing, in the current meta complex behaviour like combo fields and positional awareness has kind of gone out the window. I’m not saying they won’t field better results just that you don’t need them to pass off as decent anymore which is sad.

As stated above, dodge at the end of the shield block (bonus points for not hitting the block too) to prevent phantasm summons. Without phantasms they have no damage and a lot less defence.

Interrupt the signet of illusions and no 2nd distortion.

That is how you win, to clarify you win by making them leave.

Any other mesmer build is so hilariously weak in this meta it isn’t worth talking about.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

@ apharma
Gotta stop you right there. You need to read this and consider that many users are beginning to notice clear evidence of what Ithilwen is talking about:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/matchmaking-algo-BROKEN-w-evidence/first#post6635823

Yes I have read that however what information was given?

We got the names of top tier players and that these interesting matches happened to the guy twice in the season.

The thing is what is not said speaks just as loudly to me as what is said.

In the first example he neglects to mention 2 very important things as well as a 3rd issue you raised yourself.

What time was it? If this was at some obscure hour of the night or at say 10am when a lot of people are either at work, school or other activities this would reduce the pool of players significantly.

What was his and CJ’s rating? He didn’t say, he could have the same or similar rating to zeromis and kitten making it fairly equal on paper especially if the other solo players were in the same rating.

The third thing is, were they the real accounts of these people? I only mention this because there has been such a plague of alt accounts in NA that while you might know it’s these people behind the computer we do not know if the rating and MMR is accurately being taken into account by the match maker.

The second example is easy enough to figure out, he queued with a platinum, last I heard it queues a duo as the highest rated player. This was to prevent platinum’s getting easy wins by queuing with bronze and losing the average rating of the duo. So while his alt account was 1480 he was being treated as 1620 to prevent manipulation.

Funny thing is he won the match because of the match maker treating him as 1620 which is probably a better representation of his skill.

Edit: Everyone complains about these mismatches but how often does it come up with a game that’s on paper OK? You listed above tons of external factors the maker has no control over or knowledge of and any of these will tip the game massively. That’s before we even talk team comps and the lack of any way to make that fair without extending queue times to excessive lengths where you will see waits of 15-30 mins across the whole spectrum of players.

Ithilwen.1529:

The “best” would be able to do it on there own merits. In this instance we have “the best” being fed easy wins by being placed on teams that are stacked to be better than there opponents.

That’s neither honorable nor competition. A competition, by it’s very nature and definition, requires a level playing field.

You have yet to prove the system does feed them easy wins, it is just your extremely warped vision that sees this. Go watch Frostball’s stream, he loses plenty of games even though he worked hard to carry, same with Helseth and Sindrener. They are not fed easy wins any more than everyone else gets the blow out matches in their favour.

Competition especially where there’s a ladder means some winning, some losing and the winners always stand on the shoulders of the defeated, it’s just the way it works.

Ithilwen.1529:

apharma.3741:

Ithilwen.1529:

Your replies are not relevant to what I said or to the OP. Therefore they merit no further answer.

I don’t honestly think ANET is seeking to make fair matches. I think they believe that “competitive” matches in which one side is heavily favored are better in some way.

If this is the case, expect population to go further down.

Part of it is, more so if we realise the matchmaker is doing what its intended to do, create games for people to play that are balanced within a certain parameter.

You go on loss streaks till you get to where you should be then you get wins and losses in different amounts. This fluctuation can be down to many of the reasons mentioned by the OP. I also added that there are some people who may intentionally throw a game because they see your account name and remember it from the last 5 seasons of PvP posts.

As for the OP, the fact remains that the matchmaker is trying to do as good a job as it can. The issue is the meta changes at a snails pace, there’s no diversity or variety for a lot of classes and many are still stung by the rewards nerf from previous seasons. This leads to a much reduced population playing which only makes the matchmakers job even harder.

The only way I think it can be improved (without shafting the top 100 players like Ithilwen wants to do) is to cap how much you can win or lose from bottom to top. Most complaints about matchmaking come with complaints about the loss of pips.

This post illustrates a basic myth that is perpetuated by apologists for “competitive” matches. That is to say, matches that are made easy for high ranking players.

There is no finding a level. There is no balancing out. That theory was tried for two seasons straight. Those seasons were characterized by extreme blowouts. It’s directly responsible for the current population issues.

No, it isn’t my duty to be fed to high ranking players to make them feel good. The vague hope of better matches some time in an undefined future isn’t enough motivation, sorry.

Put the tin foil down, back away from the hat. ANet is not out to get you and just you. There is no special marker on ESL player accounts which make them paired up with each other (outside of the manipulators) and so feed them easy wins.

Go watch Frostball’s streams, he’s been playing core specs, fresh accounts and getting them all into platinum solo. Not payed much attention to the stream (sorry Frosty) so dunno if he got to legend but still it shows there’s no special circumstances or barrier to progression that skill does not overcome.

Ah well I guess there’s just no getting through to some people especially when they are so hypocritical.

Also that last bit made me laugh, welcome to competition, the best stand on the shoulders of the defeated.

Ithilwen.1529:

Your replies are not relevant to what I said or to the OP. Therefore they merit no further answer.

I don’t honestly think ANET is seeking to make fair matches. I think they believe that “competitive” matches in which one side is heavily favored are better in some way.

If this is the case, expect population to go further down.

Part of it is, more so if we realise the matchmaker is doing what its intended to do, create games for people to play that are balanced within a certain parameter.

You go on loss streaks till you get to where you should be then you get wins and losses in different amounts. This fluctuation can be down to many of the reasons mentioned by the OP. I also added that there are some people who may intentionally throw a game because they see your account name and remember it from the last 5 seasons of PvP posts.

As for the OP, the fact remains that the matchmaker is trying to do as good a job as it can. The issue is the meta changes at a snails pace, there’s no diversity or variety for a lot of classes and many are still stung by the rewards nerf from previous seasons. This leads to a much reduced population playing which only makes the matchmakers job even harder.

The only way I think it can be improved (without shafting the top 100 players like Ithilwen wants to do) is to cap how much you can win or lose from bottom to top. Most complaints about matchmaking come with complaints about the loss of pips.

Reaper Alim.4176:

kdaddy.5431:

Ithilwen.1529:

kdaddy.5431:

Faux Play.6104:

kdaddy.5431:

Faux Play.6104:

To me it doesn’t seem that odd. Both teams have a fairly tight grouping of players, and the teams are only ~200 points apart.

You have to be crazy to think this is fair, Edison might be the 2nd best thief in NA and you think 2 guys with a 1510 rating have a fair shot.

Come on bruh

It doesn’t need to be fair. The 1510 rated player probably lost around 7-8 pts that match. that match should be an anomaly for them.

I agree the MM does not need to be fair. Its a low player base and people in silver have posted matches against top 50 players.

It is that very attitude that is driving away players and making matches worse. The MM absolutely needs to be as fair as possible. No one like likes to be treated as cannon fodder.

The only people liking this system are the ones benefitting from easy matches. Still it means that there is no “prestige” whatever in a title unfairly won.

Who are the ESL level players suppose to play?

There are about 50 or so at that level in EU and NA and some simply work better with others in teams. So when we had 5 vs 5 and and OE was teamed up with his 3 man group and the the Full ESL teams are playing who ya think was gonna win?

Same goes now, in OP statement there were 4 ESL players on 1 side and some decent players on the other. Everyone needs to get there shot at the champ.

To me it wouldnt be such a huge problem if ESL players didnt lose 40-50 when playing each other and get +4 when they win.

The system itself rewards players for duo queing, dodge queing and punishes you if you want to challenge yourself. Where is the incentive for the best 100 or so players to come in the game every day and play each other?

To be honest here. There really is very little incentive for competitive mindsets in GW2. But I guess that’s what ANet is trying to push out. So the other players don’t have to deal with them. Problem is ANet doesn’t really punish the cheaters. Because they are paying customers. At that point, all attempts and tries at a competitive and meaningful rank PvP system dies. With the business model of the company. Simply put, real competitive PvP is not supported here.

While I do agree the system gaming, cheating and manipulation all needs to be punished, harshly, his point does still stand. There’s a very small pool of players with a high mechanical skill and with decent map and rotational awareness that matches for them are either very stale as they fight the same people or worse still opponents on their level are nowhere to be found at that time.

I think if the amount of rating you could gain or lose in a match had a cap it might solve some issues as the majority of complaints aren’t just about the games, it’s about how much rating they lose for being in these blow out matches.

People need to wake up to the fact that (as someone made a whole post about) the matchmaker does the best it can but there’s no way to get that impossibly amazing perfectly balanced game.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Junkpile.7439:

DemonSeed.3528:

I’m not really worried about condi as much atm – I got hit by a 11,152 phase smash and 10,913 dragon’s tooth on my necro lol. That’s more than what some thieves hit me with usually.

Yes because dragons tooth is so hard to evade. Probably one of worst skills in whole game.

Ofc it is, if you’re stunned/imbo or knocked down. Some People need to stop assuming that other people don’t try to dodge anything

“Kitten son, you just got outplayed” is what comes to mind when this is the reason given. It’s not like ele has auto proc CC or immob with the CC being on relatively long cool downs. I guess if you attack into shocking aura from tempest defence but even then the DT takes takes so long we’ll be in living story 4 before it drops.

Phoenix is the one we should be talking about.

JTGuevara.9018:

Elite specs were actually nerfed with the last patch, but yes I agree. It’s not enough. Elite specs are not overpowered in terms of numbers, but by DESIGN. They’re a direct upgrade to core specs. I think you can nerf elite specs to the ground and they would still be superior to core specs.

Before elite specs, you had tradeoffs. Now you don’t. Elite specs give the player everything they want in one build: heals, boons, condis. Nothing but spam. They take the player’s skill away.

Unfortunately, I find that this game tends to cater to pseudo-competitive kiddies who just want to farm wins. This is where the “git gud” culture comes from.

There’s also the issue of there only being one elite spec per class for a system designed for multiple elite specs that should focus on one area. So what we have now are elite specs that brought a bit of everything and a direct upgrade most of the time.

The biggest example of this is tempest, a front lines support line where most of the skills and overloads do more damage and have higher DPS than core alternatives.

This might be remedied when we get the next expac and see reworks of things like harmonious conduit, the damage from warhorn replaced with useful boons/effects and the same with air and fire overload.

Ithilwen.1529:

Having played in an automated tournament, it feels even worse. My team’s score was only double digits at the end. The other team was positively gleeful in curb stomping us.

Long ago, 5 player teams were a separate queue. Perhaps because of the high volume of complaints about match waits, that queue was combined with the solo queue.

Those “premades” then exploited and stomped solos for several seasons. We are now at the point where full teams are strongly disliked. In addition, the farming of solo players has driven enough away that there isn’t population for full teams.

I’d also personally argue that full teams would be blatantly elitist and drive away the last few holdouts, like me.

Fixing PvP has several requirements. One of the biggest ones is more people playing. To achieve that; rewards would have to be increased and wins distributed better.

Distributing wins better would mean a pure solo queue with anti syncing policy. Legendary armor would be a possible option for attractive rewards.

There’s a saying, when you point the finger at someone else there are 3 more pointing back at you.

When are you going to own up to the idea that you aren’t particularly good and that the matchmaker is trying to get you decent matches? The issue is at low levels as listed above these factors can have a much bigger impact on the game. The better question is, are you being prevented from obtaining all the items and goals higher ranked players get? Not really except winning an AT or getting a fancy title for the leaderboard.

We also missed personal grudges and rivalries from the list. There’s some people who will flat out refuse to play with each other because one of them has a history of being a salty kitten. Even heard people refusing to play because someone is a core spec, certain class, 2 thieves mainly but can be other classes.

Just to say, I entirely own up to the fact that I am terrible at using mesmer in PvP (much better in WvW) and the meta isn’t kind to the power mes I have more experience in playing in WvW. I wouldn’t dream of playing mesmer in ranked because of this, because I know it’s not half as good as a face roll class or my main ele.

zealex.9410:

Ithilwen.1529:

There is no such thing as a Mesmer one-shot kill. There is a burst which uses up several skill slots and happens rapidly.

The same can be said of DH, War and pretty much every other class.

I wouldnt say gaurd or warr can delete you as fast as mesmer but then again mesmer has kinda long ish cd’s and noticable animations.

Guard and war can, headbutt into berserk, HB and arc divider to finish. Someone without any passives and 15-20k hp will be downed no matter which way you cut it. You know if we’re talking about the same people who have issues with power mes.

Guards have plenty of wombo combos, remember the old medi guard which used whirling wrath with JI and smite conditions to burst people down really fast?

I’m not saying these are good builds or that they’re OP just that many classes have skills and traits that allow for incredibly high amounts of damage in a short frame of time, even necro!

Hevoskuuri.3891:

I agree, being linked to Piken now 3rd(?) time in a row is too much. Smaller servers like WSR were a lot more fun before, now it’s chaos and blobs 24/7.

It’s the 2nd time we’ve been with Piken, not sure why you’d think it’s 3rd time.

If we could go back to being a server again I’d love that but I doubt ANet will reverse linkings sadly.

Monded I don’t care what you do, the server has lost plenty of people in the past you’ll just be another load of people that bandwagon around. Best of luck if you do move, if HOOD do stay we look forward to many more fun times with Bollen and HOOD.