Guild Wars 2

Poliator.7021:

I would say that the safest choice when going Solo, is taking one of the three Celestial classes: Elementalist (cele ele), Warrior (shoutbow) or Engineer (celestial rifle, 2 kits).

You bring a lot of support for your teammates as long as good damage outcome and sustain for yourself.

However, don’t pick one of those three if there is already, for example, 3 other celestial/bunkers. You will find that your team lacks the damage. In that case just roll something like a Thief, DPS Medi Guard, Power Necro, Pewpew Power Ranger… whatever DPS you feel like. I’d say mostly Thief or DPS Guard, but it’s just my personal preference I guess.

Celestial would focus on two roles: Roaming Speed (not comparable to Thief, but fairly good in the three builds) and Bunker (with damage in this case).

Zerker Thief: Single Target Damage, Roaming Speed and Decaps.

DPS Medi Guard: Single Target Damage and argably some sort of support coming from Virtues (looking at the Hammer meta build there).

Again, this is just my opinion. Hope it helps.

Thanks! Looks like it’s towards more than 1 role at a time. Makes sense…maybe specialization is a luxury of premades since they have an assured team composition…?

Let’s say I only solo in PvP and never form a team. Which role in your opinion gives the statistically highest chance of contributing to a win? This will influence which class I take.

Do I focus on:

1. Single Target Damage – but fail against bunkers who sit and soak it up

2. Roaming speed – to help unbalance fights quickly in different places

3. Bunker/Decap – push people off points, not die to any single person, but die to more than one individual. No damage.

4. Huge AoE – to apply pressure on as many people as possible.

Of course, we can also have hybrids who by definition won’t be the best at any single role. Which in your opinion are your best options?

For me, the saddest thing is to see what’s happened to the guardian. He we have someone who’s primary function is literally in his to – to “guard”. And I come back to PvP only to find that he’s now a pure DPS burst build!

The necro, for whom conditions must come naturally, has now given way to necros running power with a dagger.

The Mesmer, who’s idea was deception has now lost its “clone death” conditions, negating the whole idea of the class. The other idea of phantasms has been nerfed into the ground as well. Now mesmers only play shatter.

Maybe the only classes that have stayed true to their philosophy are the engineers, thiefs, and eles.

But even for these, the build variety is sadly lacking. People say “experiment”! But we’ve already done that. There were lots of builds that were actively taken away and hit by nerfs. It’s as if the developers only want one type of playstyle for each class..

The reason they give is “we don’t want the class to be played like that”. Well, who cares what you want? Stop slotting people into playstyles of your choice!

Thanks guys. I’ll see if I can use this to configure a build of my own!

I like the idea of weakness especially with the “no crit” and fumble. I thought that a berserker would be a lot more durable when fighting a weakened foe, so it might be worth giving up some damage for huge amounts of weakness on the enemies.

So which profession can do this reliably do you think? I know the necro’s trait “withering precision” is pretty bad with a 20s cooldown but when combined with other weakness giving traits, do you think it’ll be viable in PvP?

Any other berserker type builds that can be reconfigure for long weakness durations?

Arcadio.6875:

The progression of pvp is getting better as a player. What they should show is our mmr.

But if others cannot see that progression via a visible indicator (title, finisher, gear, whatever), then what’s the point of becoming a better player?

It’s like playing invisibly- only you know and no one else does. Kind of defeats the purpose of being an MMO if your achievements are visible only to yourself. If we “just wanted to get better”, then we might as well play an offline game and hone our skills quietly in the darkness!

I think this thread amply demonstrates one thing – Anet does not have away to determine a better player from a poor one.

Previously it used to be:

Rank != Skill . And consequently

Unlocked Gear != Skill

Now it’s

MMR != Skill (see above)

So what IS the measure of skill then? If you take neither the time played into account, nor the number of matches won, nor the MMR, then how on earth one supposed to know?

In short, everyone in PvP is the same and no one has distinguishing features telling others that this guy here is a better player than that guy there.

Right now – good or bad – everyone wins ~50% of their matches (by definition) due to MMR matchups. This results in low MMR players getting rewarded at the same rate as higher MMR players.

Wouldn’t it be more fair if the higher internal MMR you have, the more you progress in your track? (as an example). Otherwise we all progress at the same rate and get no material rewards for being better players.

Oreithyia.3064:

Good job.
Do have the possibility to record your electric piano directly with a cable ith your computer?
that would make the sound quality a bit better.

I tried connecting it, but only got a midi output. Maybe I need to try something different…

I no longer play GW2, but I’ve always loved the song “Fear Not This Night”. Took me a while to learn, but it was worth it!

Awesome. Thanks!

Hey, been out of GW2 for around 6 months. As a point of reference, ascended armor hadn’t been released yet.

Before I took a break, the best class in a party was a pure zerker DPS warrior with GS/Ax+Mace. Has the meta changed since then?

I’ll check back again in a while. I was hoping for some more progression related items in PvP – difficult to obtain, and time consuming, and unique to PvP. Let’s hope Anet adds some of that stuff in a later update!

Thanks!

/15chars

Just popping in to ask the community if any of these are still the same after 6 months and whether or not it’s worth coming back to play. If not…well, see you after another 6 months!

Yes/No Questions:

1. Any unique PvP only rewards?
2. Any increase in level caps after 55 err…I mean 80? (progression)
3. Any new PvP titles to grind towards for extra progression?

Thanks!

I’ve laid out my reasons for what I think needs to improve in Guild Wars 2.

http://www.bhagwad.com/blog/2014/personal/why-i-stopped-playing-guild-wars-2.html/

To summarize:

PvE:
1. More soloable content
2. More “dark” atmosphere

PvP:
1. Long term goals needed
2. Unique PvP skins/weapons/rewards

Winning back ticks is a losing game because it’s far quicker to decap a point than to take it back. 4 seconds to 12 seconds if I’m not mistaken. And yes, I’ve met warriors with lots of stun breaks. But given the number of insta-cast CC options the engi has on lower CDs, they just can’t keep up.

So if a decapper wants to take the point from you, they only need to push you out for 4 seconds. Dead easy, especially with net shot and maybe supply create for extra immob.

With that said, if the engi is not running mines, then a stability warrior can hold out the longest against a decapper. Even longer than a guardian with hallowed ground (could be a close one due to a guardian’s blocks, etc). But if he has mine field, it’s pretty much hasta la vista as far as pure decapping a point goes.

Doubt it can beat a pure decap engi for decapping. An engi can even strip stability with ease. With overcharged shot, flame thrower knockback, toolbox pull, and thumper turret double knockbacks, there’s no question of even comparing the two…

For the first time in 1 1/2 years, I have gone a few days without PvP’ing even though I had the time and opportunity. And you know what? It doesn’t matter! Because I’ve reached the “peak” progression offered by this game and even if I sit out for a month I still have the same titles, weapons, rank etc as those who’ve played in that time.

This isn’t a “I quit” thread – more like a “Wake me up when I get some more benefits out of PvP’ing exclusively. When there’s something more to achieve. A new milestone, new heights to scale”.

That 10,000 PvP wins champ brawler title is too kitten far away for it to figure into my calculations. What we need is something that’s just out of reach all the time.

You forgot the decapper. Just one profession can play it – the decap engi.

Rezz.8019:

You can always play thief and just keep pushing far point. You will not cooperate with your team at all. Problem solved!

Agreed. I like “solo” type professions (though for some reason I never liked the thief). Right now I switch between close bunker as a necro with some help at mid and a pure decap engi.

For example, I’ve tried playing a bunker guardian but that depends heavily on team support. If you’re alone and no one comes to help you, you’re pretty useless. That’s one of the reasons why I think conquest is flawed with its focus on teamwork.

monepipi.5160:

This a troll thread?

why would you WANT to decrease teamwork? thats making the game more shallow and braindead. People play MMOs for the interaction, this is not Skyrim or some RPG

This must be a troll thread.

I agree that people play MMOs for the interaction. However, the type of interaction is not set. For example, even in Solo q, there is a lot of interaction. PvP is by definition an interactive game mode. Interacting with people doesn’t necessarily mean you have to work in a team does it?

Getting better rewards and showing off to others is also a form of interaction. The reason I don’t play Skyrim for example is that (as far as I know), there’s no way to demonstrate your progress to others. It’s like a black box where it’s just you and no scope for showing off to anyone else.

None of this has anything to do with teamwork…

Why not remove the scoreboard entirely? Serves no purpose. Previously I could see people’s rank points so it had show off value. Now nothing…

ThatShortGuy.4672:

4043885ad.4281:

ThatShortGuy.4672:

I get where you’re coming from. I miss the heyday of GW1 PvP but it’s gone now. Anet chose Conquest for GW2 PvP which, you’re right, requires a team effort to win.

Wouldn’t a death match area “fix” this? Forgive me if I’m assuming, but it sounds like you want Random Areas back.

RAs were awesome weren’t they? But don’t get me wrong. Most people seem to think that it’s one or the other. I see no reason why we can’t have both. So many times it seems that we’re presented with a false dichotomy. This or that. Have conquest or deathmatch.

Why not have both? Goodness for everyone around! And pop duels into the mix as well.

This is a video game – we can add stuff without taking away existing material!

We do have Courtyard for death match but I don’t think we see enough of it to judge how well the community likes it.

I do see a running theme with death match suggestions: balance. Anet cannot balance skills and traits to both Conquest and death match. Conquest is the game mode Anet wants to promote for professional matches. This means death match will have super-hard-to-kill builds meant to bunker Conquest nodes.

Maybe Courtyard should appear in Hot Join servers more so we can judge.

Courtyard might indeed be fun. But since there are no rewards, I haven’t stepped foot into it yet…

Everyone in PvP expects to be able to get the same rewards as their PvE counterparts. In the past they used to give us Wintersday gifts, blade shards, or whatever PvE drops used to be there to PvP users when they won a match.

Now they’re removing this? Once again, PvP’ers get treated like second class citizens.

Spin Echo.8263:

bhagwad.4281:

You say it’s a team based game. Meaning that you have to team up in order to play. I disagree. And given the fact that I’ve managed to avoid teams quite successfully so far, it’s hard to give your view preference over mine isn’kitten

And this is not a zero sum game. I’m not asking for team ups to be removed. All I’m asking is for goals to be designed in such a way as to reduce the need to be cooperative.

I think you are contradicting yourself. If you feel that the goals are designed in a way that require cooperation, then that’s the same as saying that GW2 is designed as a team-based game.

It’s true that you can get through some of the content without teaming up. But it’s pretty clear that the end-game content (dungeons, fractals, WvW, PvP) in GW2 is intentionally designed to force you to team up with and rely on other players, which is completely unlike the endgame in GW1.

And I believe the developers have stated that this is their intention. They do not want to make it easier to duel, solo dungeons, etc. Probably because if they did, they would have to balance the game much differently.

I think we can require teams and still not make it team based. For example, the CoE dungeon requires a team since you can’t press all levers by yourself at the same time. I think that’s the problem. Not that the content is too tough to do on your own per se.

As far as PvP goes, I don’t see why we can’t have teams that don’t require coordination. Conquest is particularly at fault here since you need a person keeping an eye on close, etc.

Whereas we can just as easily also have modes where you’re in a team, but it doesn’t require team work. Do you get where I’m coming from?

ThatShortGuy.4672:

I get where you’re coming from. I miss the heyday of GW1 PvP but it’s gone now. Anet chose Conquest for GW2 PvP which, you’re right, requires a team effort to win.

Wouldn’t a death match area “fix” this? Forgive me if I’m assuming, but it sounds like you want Random Areas back.

RAs were awesome weren’t they? But don’t get me wrong. Most people seem to think that it’s one or the other. I see no reason why we can’t have both. So many times it seems that we’re presented with a false dichotomy. This or that. Have conquest or deathmatch.

Why not have both? Goodness for everyone around! And pop duels into the mix as well.

This is a video game – we can add stuff without taking away existing material!

Static.9841:

Yeah, I think I’m done with this topic and your lack of grasp on both reality and what a team based game is.

Not sure why you’re getting personal. It’s an intellectual discussion. One can have that in a polite and mature manner no?

Anyway, as they say… w.e.

Static.9841:

Balkanwarrior.5132:

Static.9841:

There is a reason, the reason is that Anet stated a long time ago they weren’t going back to the GW1 way of doing things.

And that’s exactly why GW2 PvP will never be even a fraction of what GW1 PvP was.

Quite, but that has no releveace to the OP crying about having to co-operate in what is a team based game and somehow thinking that it’s a bug that requires fixing.

Again, there’s that blur between opinion/fact. You say it’s a team based game. Meaning that you have to team up in order to play. I disagree. And given the fact that I’ve managed to avoid teams quite successfully so far, it’s hard to give your view preference over mine isn’kitten

And this is not a zero sum game. I’m not asking for team ups to be removed. All I’m asking is for goals to be designed in such a way as to reduce the need to be cooperative.

Static.9841:

Again, go play a single player game, you clearly don’t understand this one.

You have a choice to roll solo in PvE and Wv3. PvP is team based, what part of this don’t you understand?

What I don’t understand is where you’re getting your sources from. What you’ve said seems to be your opinion. You appear to be elevating this to fact. I’m curious to know why.

As far as I know, GW2 is a single player game with optional team ups. Is that a troubling distinction?

Static.9841:

bhagwad.4281:

And the ability to team up doesn’t automatically make it a team based game either. The facility to team up is there. It’s not needed. That’s why the solo q was so well received. I gave the example of GW1 and how we didn’t need to have team based goals there. It’s hardly unreasonable to expect that GW2 have the same philosophy.

There is a reason, the reason is that Anet stated a long time ago they weren’t going back to the GW1 way of doing things.

My main point was that if you make the game less focused on team play, people would enjoy it a lot more. No one likes to depend on other people for their enjoyment.

Then buy a single player game. GW2 is clearly not for you.

Again, an MMO simply states that you can interact with other players. The key word is choice. There should be no content that punishes you for making another choice.

Static.9841:

Nothing needs to “fixed”. It IS a team based game, if it were otherwise, you would just be 1v1. You don’t need a ‘holy trinity’ for it to be team based, the absence of it doesn’t suddenly make it otherwise.

I don’t think you understand PvP.

And the ability to team up doesn’t automatically make it a team based game either. The facility to team up is there. It’s not needed. That’s why the solo q was so well received. I gave the example of GW1 and how we didn’t need to have team based goals there. It’s hardly unreasonable to expect that GW2 have the same philosophy.

My main point was that if you make the game less focused on team play, people would enjoy it a lot more. No one likes to depend on other people for their enjoyment.

We have the same problem in dungeons. In GW1, we could happily take our heroes along and do instanced content solo. Now we have these mechanics that need someone else to help you enjoy content. It’s a problem and one which I think we should talk about no?

Static.9841:

…….

lol

What?

So, you want to play a group-based game but not actually contribute to the group or co-ordinate with them? I don’t… what?

The troll in this OP is mighty…..

Just because we have the ability to team up doesn’t make it a team based game. The fact that we have no holy trinity, a solo q, etc tells me that GW2 is hardly marketed as a team game.

Sure, no one is stopping people from playing together. And I never said that we should. I’m just saying that having team based objectives is a bad idea that needs to be fixed.

Much of the frustration comes from the design of GW2 which emphasizes team play instead of individual play. Where you need one person to do something and you do something else. As long as this “bug” remains, it’s going to be pretty frustrating.

I remember doing jade quarries etc in GW1. You could blissfully do your own thing without worrying about others on your team If you were a monk, you could RoJ the enemy node solo. Similarly with the other professions.

Deathmatch, and other modes where you can just do your own thing without having to cooperate to gain an advantage are the best ways to make PvP less frustrating IMHO. The smaller advantage we have if we cooperate, the better. Conquest is pretty heavy on team play, which in my opinion is the biggest problem.

I’m not sure what the best way is for disincentivizing team play in PvP is though…any suggestions?

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

bhagwad.4281:

This is probably the only game/game mode I’ve seen that gives equal rewards to teams with high MMRs fighting similar high MMR teams and those with low MMRs fighting other low MMRs.

Weird.

Logically the rewards you get should keep increasing with your MMR no? Otherwise what’s the motivation to get better? You will by definition always win 50% of your games with the same rewards…

This also probably the only online game that has no subs as well. Just something to consider.

It’s also the only game that a class called “Mesmer” and an end boss called Zhaitan.

What does that have to do with the original question? Nothing whatsoever.

This thread has gone way off track. The OP wasn’t talking about killing anyone using turrets or trying to 1v1 someone or even surviving (though that’s implied).

The OP was talking only about using turrets to decap a point. This is not about the general viability of turrets and the strength and pros/cons of engineers at large.

Spin Echo.8263:

bhagwad.4281:

Well, it’s not logically necessary to have loot drops in PvE either. Everyone can just play in starter skin gear!

Well, PvE is theoretically an RPG with a story arc, an evolving “zero to hero” narrative. And in most RPGs, loot progression helps to illustrate character progression. I know that GW2 is not exactly a typical RPG, but that’s their underlying model.

Locuz.2651:

During my 10+ years of playing competetive online games ive learned one thing:

The vast majority of players dont pvp for the sake of it. They need “carrots” to stay motivated.

Seriously? I don’t think any of the old-school online games offer anything at all to winners, other than the possibility of moving up a ladder to face tougher opponents. For instance Starcraft, Battlefront 1942, etc.

I realize there is a trend nowadays to attach carrots to everything you do with a computer, even clicking on a cow. But it’s hardly necessary.

That would be true if GW2 was not an MMO. But MMOs are fundamentally based on loot. This isn’t even up for grabs – I mean we already have loot, so the question of whether or not there should be loot for PvP is a moot one. The only remaining question is the equitable nature of it.

If we’re having loot, then higher MMR matches should get more than lower MMR ones.

Spin Echo.8263:

There’s no practical disadvantage. But it’s not logically necessary, either.

Well, it’s not logically necessary to have loot drops in PvE either. Everyone can just play in starter skin gear!

Jokes aside, what can be more logical than increasing rewards as you continue to progress higher? I don’t think there’ll be a single person who would argue that it’s illogical.

Spin Echo.8263:

You’re assuming that the game is designed to motivate you to get better. I don’t think that’s the case at all. People motivate themselves to get better because they intrinsically want to get better. And sometimes they don’t, which is fine too in a casual game.

Instead, the game is designed to make each match fun for the players. That means making sure opponents are equally skilled, so the outcome is not predictable. It means rewarding both teams, so players have an incentive to finish the match. And it means rewarding the winning team more, so players have an incentive to try to win. Whether their skills improve over time doesn’t really matter as much.

And what’s the disadvantage in rewarding higher MMR matchups more than lower MMR ones? Or do you feel that those with a higher MMR don’t deserve better rewards?

This is probably the only game/game mode I’ve seen that gives equal rewards to teams with high MMRs fighting similar high MMR teams and those with low MMRs fighting other low MMRs.

Weird.

Logically the rewards you get should keep increasing with your MMR no? Otherwise what’s the motivation to get better? You will by definition always win 50% of your games with the same rewards…

People need to stop assuming that others don’t know how to play. Comments like l2p are the laziest form of “advice”. It’s just short of moral posturing. Never presume that someone can’t play unless they admit it themselves.

I’m fine with MMR – but not with rank points. If you separate rank points by character, then that’s a disincentive to play on any character but your highest one…

bobomb.5209:

I am not sure honestly. I assume there would be complications with the chinese publisher and or government since non-chinese citizens would be interacting with chinese citizens without the ability to censor. Also if you haven’t seen any screenshots of the chinese version it is different than the one you have been playing.

It’s different? How?

Since I’m in India, it’ll be nice to have lower ping times on a server that is geographically closer than Europe…

Sometimes just sitting at home is the best thing to do. Especially on a map like forest where the route from their spawn point to your close is the closest. Unless the other team employs a strategy like sending 3 people to your close, you should never ever lose close.

Trust me – if I had to choose between a person who sits home all the time and a person who caps close and leaves it thinking the point will defend itself, I would choose the former over the latter any day.

someone.7485:

Guardian is the longest decap then cap while keeping them alive though. Too much stability, agis, and blocks. But still fun to do. You can only decap foefire from a bad bunk. I still maintain decap engi is not useful, but kitten good fun for annoying the hell outta people.

If a decap engi uses minefield to easy strip stability, it’s good bye to guardian bunkers. Yes, if he takes hallowed ground it can be a bit of a pain, but not many guardians do that and it’s only temporary protection anyway with a really long CD.

Most guardians are very predictable. As soon as their stability runs out, they’ll start using block skills like shield of wrath and shelter, and try dodging around randomly. As a decap engi, you just need to wait a few seconds for these antics to end and then casually knock them off point. Game over.

Anton.1769:

you can decap point with engi, no reason to kill guard)

+1. Decap engi is the anti bunker. Except when it’s on foefire mid point. And even then you can decap if you do it right.

Meglobob.8620:

Not a bad idea, to join a solo q or team q game costs 1g. You get the 1g back at the end of the match, as long as you score above the average of all players involved divided by 2. So pretty easy to get your 1g refunded, but if you AFK you lose 1g.

Could help a lot…

No gambling involved there.

I don’t want any rewards tied to personal score. That metric needs to be removed and burnt.

Decap engis were nerfed with the recent patch – specifically AR was nerfed since everyone was crying about it.

Now what?

Spurnshadow.3678:

Anything like this would be terrible. Why? Because Anet needs to fix the 4v5 and unbalanced matchmaking system.

I intentionally AFK quite a lot. Not every game or every other game, but when there’s a 4v5, as we all know, happens frequently, then I give it a shot. If it’s obvious that we can’t win, especially depending on the map (as some maps heavily favor 5 players over 4), then I’ll sit in spawn. I want the match to end asap so I can get to the next match that, hopefully, has 5 players.

There’s also that more rare instance where there are 3 warriors and 2 guardians of high ranking matched against 3 thieves, and 2 mesmer type of thing. Or how about when 3 members of your team don’t give a kitten at all about playing the map and just want to gank people.

So, yeah. Until those issues are fixed (Which isn’t hard. I’ve made other posts about them), don’t punish me and force me to play in a terrible match.

You’re not the only one in your team. It’s highly disrespectful to your team mates to sit out a match. All AFK’ers should be punished regardless of the situation. I don’t care if you think the match is lost or if the score is 400-0. Dishonorable points must be awarded if you go AFK.

No one is forcing you to enter solo q or team q either. If you queue up, those are the risks you take.