Guild Wars 2

All of us have different definition of what OP means. Some say the guardian’s ability to hold a point is OP. Others say the Ele’s ability to survive AND deal out damage is OP. Many are of the opinion that thieves shouldn’t be able to stealth so often etc.

One perspective that I feel is useful should be this: No single player should ever be able to survive/beat/run away against two enemies of any classes of comparable skill. For example, I think it’s perfectly acceptable for a guardian to “hold out” a bit longer against two players but eventually they should fall – trade off between damage and defense.

But it’s not ok for two players to take forever fighting a single thief who repeatedly stealths (thereby tying up two resources for the price of one) and has the ability to just run away at the end. It’s not ok for a bunker ele to require two players to take them down and dish out heavy damage/knockbacks etc. at the same time.

Bottom line – given comparable skill levels, two players facing a single player should never have any trouble. For me, this is one of the building blocks of balance. If there is a build that allows a single player to take on two, that build is by definition OP.

Thoughts?

I run a phantasm damage build in PvP and I’ve somehow avoided the staff till now. Didn’t think it was enough DPS so I ran a Sw+P/Scepter+Sw. Lotsa damage and I do quite well. The only disadvantage is that the swordsman isn’t ranged and so tends to die a bit more.

But I decided I was being unfair to the staff and I’ve been playing with it for the past two days. I must admit the survivability excellent. I’ve gone several matches without a single death thanks to chaos armor, phase retreat and chaos storm. Never realized how tough I could become. Not that I died more than my fair share with a sword offhand, but no comparison.

It did seem as if it was taking longer for my to kill my enemies though so I recorded some videos and played them back in slow motion. The results were somewhat unclear – there’s so much confusion in a PvP match that even at 0.25% speed it wasn’t easy to figure it out. But I thought the warlock missed a little too often. Simple direction changes and of course evades cause the bolt to go haywire and in PvP everyone’s always moving. No surprise there. I got in some big hits, but it seemed the main damage was now coming from the duelist whereas previously the swordsman with the low recharge and close distance would outclass the duelist in pure damage.

I understand one can’t have everything. I get awesome survivability with the staff in exchange for the burst damage from the swordsman. The question to me is how big is the tradeoff? Any mesmers here would like to share their insights regarding swordsman vs iwarlock?

P.S: The duelist missing isn’t an issue. It fires multiple shots that move really fast so they always hit home. Plus I think the recharge is a bit faster than warlock. So that’s not going away. For me it’s between the iWarlock and the iSwordsman.

Cogbyrn.7283:

games have devolved to this point, where the reward means more than the competitive spirit, is ultra sad to me.

For many people like myself, rewards are the reason we play. That’s not to say we don’t enjoy it – we do. But it’s not enough. I need to see some progression – something. Anything.

That’s why I never play WvW – fun concept but you get nothing for the time you spend there. I only do the jumping puzzle for the badges and destroy the siege plans afterwards.

I love PvP – it’s fun, and challenging. But I wouldn’t do it if not for the glory. For the loot. For bragging rights. “Fun” isn’t enough. I need something for my time.

In fact, sPvP needs more rewards, not less. The time to rank up keeps increasing and in the meantime I’ve already got the best gear for my tier. They need to have intermediate rewards of some kind to keep us motivated.

The original Guild Wars allowed us to earn real gold and super cool rewards via PvP with Zaishen chests. It was understood that PvP was super fun. But we need something more.

Will try and catch you today. I play a Mesmer as main and Guardian as secondary – been looking out for a tPvP team as well.

In the PvP rewards section , there are sometimes four tiers of weapons whereas there are only three crafting tiers – Arcane Orbs, Arcane Crystals and Arcane Slivers.

This means that two items share exactly the same mystic forge recipe. Here is an example of one such pair: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Forest_weapon and http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Valley_weapon .

So how does this work? Is it random? Is there something else I’m missing?

Meh – I just do the jumping puzzles. I don’t even bother to try and kill anyone. And I just destroy the siege weapon blueprints after I open the Mistwrought chest.

The other day I entered WvW to do the jumping puzzle cause I need the badges for my legendary. I broadcast on the team chat that I was headed there hoping that others would join me and we could all do it safely.

Some commander or the other replied that I shouldn’t do the JP and that I should come help in some xyz place where abc was happening. I told him I merely needed the badges and wasn’t interested in anything else. I asked him and he was unable to give me a good reason why I should spend time and effort contributing to any capture point, tower, keep or whatever.

Now I’ve been playing GW2 since the beta and I’ve spent time in WvW, but simply cannot see the point. With other aspects of the game I get something to show in return for time spent. With dungeons I get tokens with which I can buy cool armor/weapons with stats that I can’t get elsewhere. With sPvP same thing. With map completion, I get a shiny star next to my name. Other little things have other tangible benefits that I can point to and say “See! I have this because I’m a super stud in xyz”.

But WvW is just a time sink with nothing to show for effort put in there. What possible reason could a rational person have to enter WvW? Once I get my badges via jumping puzzles I won’t be going there anymore.

Till then, I’ll be taking up a spot in the Q ignoring requests to come help out somewhere or the other. I’d love to actually help, but can’t see any benefit whatsoever to myself. I think Anet needs to fix this and actually give people proper incentives for WvW participation.