Guild Wars 2

Right now I’m running wells and celestial based off this build: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Celestial-Dhuumfire-vids-build-discussion/first

I’m not using dhuumfire though and I’m also experimenting with the spite line. Siphoning gives you sustain, the build has lots of AoE, lots of protection, and enemies are scared to stay close to you because of the well.s

Without spite there’s limited might stacking though, so it’s a trade off between survivability and damage…as there should be I guess.

Does anyone know why Anet doesn’t make MMRs visible?

P.S. On the side, they need to increase the reward track progression for higher MMR players. If they don’t want to show it, fine. At least link the amount gain towards your track by taking into consideration that better players should be rewarded according to their skill.

Otherwise, you have skilled and unskilled players earning rewards at the same rate. That…just doesn’t make sense. It’ll also allow us to see how good we are by how much benefit we gain from a reward track.

Johje Holan.4607:

So people who are complaining about bad matches or being paired with people of different skill – it would be nice to know what level you consider yourself.

Because I’ve had a different experience. And I am a new player (well a new PvP’er) so maybe I’m one of the people you’re talking about? But I don’t do any of the bad things you all have mentioned; I actually try to win the match. Maybe the matchmaking is better if you’re a low level player.

My experience has been surprisingly good. I’ve avoided playing PvP because I came on the fourms and read all the complaints about the matchmaking. But during the SH beta I happened to get a Conquest match – and it was actually fun to my surprise.

And in the past couple of weeks I’ve had almost all fairly close matches. I seem to be getting paired with people of my relative skill level.

Well, that’s the conundrum Anet has placed us in really because we have no objective way of measuring anything about ourselves in PvP. Not time spent (beyond r80), no visible MMR, no unlockable skins for graded achievements, no graded titles…nothin.

I can only talk about observable behavior, and not secondary things like “skill” etc. Personally if you ask me, the biggest skill a player can have in PvP is knowing how/when to rotate between points. When to stand and guard, and when to leave. When to continue fighting, and when to decap an unguarded point.

Personally, I think “skill” is overrated beyond a point. After that point, “meta” map awareness has a much greater impact on the outcome of the map.

tboneking.2531:

The problem is that this could be exploitable. Just continually join matches and resign them for reward track progress. It would be a great feature if it couldn’t be used for gimmicky things like that, but there’s not really away to impliment that.

We’re not talking hotjoin are we? And how many points does one get on resignation? I’m thinking they could implement whatever checks and balances they had in the original GW1.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I wouldn’t automatically assume Marauders means glass. You can essentially have perma-protection in addition to your usual distorts, heals, blinds, ECT. When you take the proper traits. Check out Holl’s boonshare thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Vid-BoonShare-Mesmer-Post-Patch-WvW-PvP

I run a similar build to that (also in that link) with mercy runes. Even with Mirror granting a small heal, restorative illusions mixed with perms regen-protection and more blinds than I know what to do with (not to mention stability) gives me plenty of sustain.

In any given fight I hold on to perma: fury, swiftness, protection, regeneration, might while still holding decent uptimes of retaliation & aegis. Its one of the strongest builds I’ve played since the patch behind shatter/lockdown

I’ll check this out and see how it plays. Thanks!

denis.9487:

Try dueling/inspiration/chaos. De temporal enchanter and bountiful disillusionment. The idea is still shatter do damage but all your shatters will give stability plus other boon. Heal and remove a condition. Trait master of manipulations for reflects. Run decoy blink null field. If you don’t like that then drop temp enchanter and take illusionary inspiration and share all the boons you receive after shattering.

Thanks for the idea! Will have to see whether or not I can make it competitive in PvP.

apharma.3741:

Try a condi build then.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNArfWlsnhy0YjawINwtGLvGk5KmRNRDQObSZC6d0A-TZRHABws/QSlBE4UAAwDAI4jAAA

Is what I’m using in WvW but with perplexity runes as you get a lot of confusion but undead and nightmare runes are good choices. Switch between either feast and mirror depending on what you like.

Oh and I run PU for the extra stealth in running away when a 30 man zerg comes to kill 10 of us -.- but I adjusted that for you.

Hmm….how important is the torch in your build? I’d like to avoid it because stealth allows decapping in PvP. Maybe replace with a pistol? That way I could also take phantasmal fury since the “Desperate decoy” trait again puts one in stealth.

tobascodagama.2961:

Power Shatter. Just follow Chaos’ MirrorBlink build.

Thanks. Just updated the post. Forgot to mention that I don’t want to be glass with marauder or berserker amulet…

I also checked out the build you mentioned. It uses CS and MoD…something I want to avoid.

Based on my playstyle, does anyone have suggestions for a mesmer build that doesn’t rely on lots of stealth or interrupts (basically no CS or PU or CI), since I don’t want to use the repeated stun thing. After the patch, I haven’t really been able to find a competitive build that avoids both of these..

Edit: Oh, and I also don’t want to go glass cannon, so the berserker and marauder ammys are out…

For the past week or so, I’ve been suddenly paired up with people who have no clue how to PvP. I mean…maybe it’s just a streak or something, but I’ve started to very frequently see the following types of behavior in matches:

1. Fighting off points

2. Camping close (even when there’s no threat in sight)

3. Going far, and unable to prevent a camp and either dying or spending vast amounts of time trying to decap. Just a short while ago, I saw a mesmer trying for half the match to dislodge a necro at far from the sides while the point ticked in the necro’s favor.

4. Work really hard to take mid, and then everyone just leaves without even keeping a token watch on the point we just know will have inc in another 20 seconds.

I’m probably missing other behaviors, but I wonder whether any internal process of matchmaking has changed, or is it just my bad luck?

I’ll never forget the feeling of finally getting a dragon weapon skin from the hundreds and hundreds of chests I opened! And it was the last day of the festival too! I remember exactly what I was doing, which character I was playing, and where.

Warrior in Bloodtide Coast doing “Escort the Lionguard”

In the meantime, we are repurposing the queues. “Unranked” is the unofficial Solo q and “Ranked” is the unofficial Team Q.

I would say it depends on who you’re facing. As a phantasm mesmer, MM builds used to eat me alive. I could never get them down and they would simply attrition me.

Now I play a well necro. Between damaging wells, marks, and DS AoE skills, the other guy’s minions are gone within the first 10 seconds of the fight and they now essentially have to play without a utility bar.

So if you like MMs, make sure that you avoid mid fights if it’s a mess, and classes that have a lot of AoE.

In general for PvP, I think (mobility + instant/fast skills) > slow but powerful attacks.

Too many dodges, invulns, blinds, interrupts, blocks and evade skills.

nearlight.3064:

bhagwad.4281:

Damage wise, does it make more sense to take deathly perception instead of dhuum? I just tried out deathly and with so many condi clears in the game, getting the damage out and up front might be a better bet than otherwise…

What do you think?

Yes it deathly perception gives you more damage than dhuumfire and applies to more skills as well. Look at Nos’s cele build, where he takes death perception over dhuumifre, simply because it deals much more damage.

Like I said, with the reaper, that may change.

Do you have a link to “No’s” cele build?

Damage wise, does it make more sense to take deathly perception instead of dhuum? I just tried out deathly and with so many condi clears in the game, getting the damage out and up front might be a better bet than otherwise…

What do you think?

Esplen.3940:

zinkz.7045:

Esplen.3940:

zinkz.7045:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I’ve notice that people are saying they are being one shotted by mesmers, and this is indicative of OPness, but the full mesmer burst happens between 1-2 seconds, can people not react to this?

What do people react with when being stunned and burst, when they can be stunned for 1.25 seconds, instantly, from 1200 range, even from stealth, any time they use skill with a cast time, multiple times per minute that far exceeds stunbreakers/invurns (and that is in a 1v1, let alone that in a teamfight these stunbreakers will get used up by against other opponents), bad, broken game design is… bad and broken.

I used to have to bait dodges on my mesmer, now I just roll my face across the keyboard.

They get stunned from 1200 range, that means something is about to happen to them, so they should use their stunbreak and probably roll or use a blocking-like ability.

Do you even read what you reply to? You can trigger CS multiple times per minute between MoD & Diversion, far more times than the number of stunbreaks / instant blocks & invurns than most builds have, there is no counterplay, and that is 1v1, add in most fights are not that, and stun breaks and the few instant invurns/blocks get used up far mroe quickly in teamfights, it is even more of a joke, it is skilless and terrible game design.

CS has a 5 second cooldown, yes you can activate it multiple times per minute, but with a 5 second delay between the stuns, you’ve already given up your intent and position allowing your opponent to know what is going to come. Sure you can mindlessly spam stuns, but if they don’t interrupt, you don’t get the bonuses (and they can be dodged, although MoD might need a cast time now).

There is counterplay and simply spamming interrupts isn’t going to do the job, even if they do stun (remember fighting Hambow Warriors? They had a lot of CC, too and the CC was somewhat manageable as long as you had at least one escape ready because you knew what was coming next).

“but if they don’t interrupt, you don’t get the bonuses”

But you get the stun – which is all the window necessary for landing the combo.

The power of CS is only partly for interrupts. 5 second intervals for 6 stuns (with harmonious mantras + recharge) is more than enough to burn through any evades, invulns, or blocks you can throw up.

One other thing – I don’t think merely landing the stun by itself breaks stealth. According to the wiki “Abilities that do not deal direct damage (like Caltrops, or the Traps which do not deal direct damage) will not break stealth”

Mantra of distraction by itself with confounding suggestions deals no damage, so the statement “you’ve already given up your intent and position” is false. You can’t know the mesmer’s position even if they stun you.

Unless I’m wrong about MoD not breaking stealth – can anyone confirm/deny?

I guess the more relevant question would be: “What can I best do as a single player without taking into consideration what my teammates are doing”?

It’s not a question of a single shot. It’s a question of multiple bursts within a short period of time. All you need is to be out of escapes for a single immobilize and it’s over. Now that the CDs for MW and CF have been dramatically lowered, this is making itself felt.

Oh, and of course this happening from stealth only makes it worse. I’ve been mesmering for 3 years, and I know how bad it feels to be preyed on by a thief from stealth with repeated bursts not being allowed to make a single mistake while the other guy stealths again and again.

I don’t want my favorite class to play that way and be cheap.

I love the idea of long term PvP progression. I’m hesitant about linking it to classes however since that will encourage people to only play one class and stick to it. I would prefer account wide progression instead.

PlatinumMember.5274:

bhagwad.4281:

Morwath.9817:

bhagwad.4281:

Can anyone tell me why we can’t have all types of carrots to satisfy everyone? Is there a shortage of carrots?

There is shortage of devs.

There is no way it can take more than an hour or so to implement a tiered “Champion” system for every 150 matches. Or to have infinite PvP levels instead of stopping at 80.

Hey everybody we have an expert here. He knows how Arena net’s system works and all their priorities.

I know you are not very happy about the system, but hyperbole like that is doing the devs a big disservice, since they are not in control of what gets worked on.

Just testing the new system probably takes more than 1 hour. Someone has to code it, design UI elements, have those UI elements tested to ensure that it doesn’t break something, obviously translate it to different language and then test it.

All of this assumes that there is a dev currently not doing anything MORE important than making a few people on the forum happy about grind.

Tl;DR

It might be a good idea to not make estimates about a system you are not familiar with. That is part of being a professional, never making assumptions about how long something takes to implement.

I’m a programmer, and what I’m doing is making educated guesses. There is no new UI that needs implementing. To extend ranks beyond 80, you simply need to find the code creating that limit and changing it to something like 10 million.

The champion tier will take more than a few minutes though. But yeah, doable in an hour.

A nice, pure damage build. Like @Yoseue said, I would try it out with Fencer’s Finesse – double sword CD, can’t really give that up!

Also, depending on your playstyle you may not want to shatter your phantasms to maximize DPS. So instead of master of fragmentation, I would also suggest trying ineptitude.

Another possible change: Take harmonious mantras instead of deceptive evasion and replace arcane thievery with power cleanse. In today’s condi heavy scene, I don’t think a 3 condi removal skill on a 45 second CD can cut it anymore. Especially since you can’t take mender’s purity – the one that removes 2 condis when you heal. This way, you get 6 condi clears with another immediate 6 lined up after you prepare the mantra.

I personally would also take blink instead of mirror images – this build really has no defence and I would be worried about surviving long enough for my phantasms to do damage.

In a way it’s sad, because the specializations are set up so that if you go domination for the 15% additional phant damage, you have to take GS, which is a very offensive weapon. In the old system, I would just take the adept domination trait and use my favorite focus offhand for defense.

kitten …I miss my old build

Morwath.9817:

bhagwad.4281:

Can anyone tell me why we can’t have all types of carrots to satisfy everyone? Is there a shortage of carrots?

There is shortage of devs.

There is no way it can take more than an hour or so to implement a tiered “Champion” system for every 150 matches. Or to have infinite PvP levels instead of stopping at 80.

So you’re using illusions (CD for swordsman), Chaos (for staff recharges) and Domination (for the stun on daze) right? With a marauder amulet?

Let me give it a try. Though I’ve grown used to being a slightly more tanky mesmer with the celestial amulet…

Which rune are you using?

Can anyone tell me why we can’t have all types of carrots to satisfy everyone? Is there a shortage of carrots?

Leodon.1564:

bhagwad.4281:

“You can’t have it as your sole reason” – why not? How does it affect you? It doesn’t. Live and let live. You play for your reasons. I’ll play for mine. You don’t get to dictate why other people should play.

Well if you have no interest in PVPing and your sole reason for PVPing is for some artificial carrot, then it does affect others because it leads to situations that Cogbryn described in his chess example (a chess player forfeiting all of his games so that he can quickly reach 100 games played).

We see it today in sPVP where people will join and just afk, players from one side all going into spectate mode as soon as their side starts to lose and then join the winning side after autobalance has kicked in, etc. These are extreme examples but I do see it happen from time to time.

Wait…if you’re talking about hotjoin, then that is not competitive at all. I don’t think @Cogbryn is referring to hotjoin either.

Just in case this wasn’t clear before…we are not talking about hotjoin.

Cogbyrn.7283:

@bhagwad: none of this has anything to do with you, actually. I’m not sad because you enjoy what you enjoy. I’m sad because I personally don’t enjoy progression in my PvP games, but it keeps surfacing everywhere. Rewards are a low-hanging fruit to get people to play/keep playing your game, but they are shallow and unfulfilling to me. So I want ANet to focus their time and effort on something that isn’t progression-based, because they have limited amounts of time.

Also, I thought ranks did a number on the quality of games because people would go out of their way to, for example, sit on nodes when only 1 person has to stay. They rewarded rank points for bad tactics. So, yes, you could argue that certain types of progression could change someone’s playstyle.

And if you want to get personal about it, yes, they can do whatever they want in the game, because they’re free spirits and no one can hold them down. However, I am also a free spirit, and I want to avoid playing with people who would sacrifice the game to get a few progression points. It’s like if you are playing chess against someone, and they just throw their pieces away repeatedly for no reason. You ask why, and they say “If I finish 100 games, I can get a new chess set, so I’m just trying to finish as quickly as possible”. They are free to do that, and I’m free to think that it ruins the spirit of the game.

The situation you describe about two people standing in a circle was something I remember from the early days of GW2 in hotjoin. Very quickly however, Anet started to rationalize the rewards with the gameplay. Meaning that now in today’s matches, players realize they get a lot more points if they win. Meaning they don’t do silly stuff like multi capping a point because they know it reduces their chances of winning and getting that huge carrot at the end.

In fact, I solo all the time and I can’t even remember when I last saw someone 2-capping a point. It just doesn’t happen often enough to matter. All people want now, is to win.

Also, you’re once again not taking into consideration about what I said regarding primary and secondary rewards. I may play for carrots. But during the game, winning is all that matters. It’s just that I wouldn’t play at all if the carrots weren’t present in the first place.

Cogbyrn.7283:

bhagwad.4281:

I don’t think anyone in the world is stopping you from getting your rush. And I don’t think you – or anyone else – should tell others what their sole reason to PvP should be.

“You can’t have it as your sole reason” – why not? How does it affect you? It doesn’t. Live and let live. You play for your reasons. I’ll play for mine. You don’t get to dictate why other people should play.

I’m just sharing my opinion. I don’t think progression-based PvP is a sustainable solution for a competitive environment. Even if they gave you the option to farm for legendaries, once you got your legendaries, you’d want something else to progress towards.

I don’t think progression is a flawed game design thing. I enjoy it from time to time. I’m just personally sad to see how it has inserted itself into everything anywhere as an addictive little mechanic that gets you playing the game for the progression, not for the game.

See above response on primary/secondary motivations.

But seriously – you are sad just because my motivations differ from yours? Even though it doesn’t affect you? What next? You’re sad that I play with focus and you play with dagger? That I like one game, and you like another? Where do you stop “being sad” just because someone else is different from you?

Viz-a-viz legendaries, progression can be made infinite with no effort at all. People are complaining that “Champion xyz” is the title limit. What is stopping Anet from introducing “levels” for each 150 games won? “Champion xyz (1)”, “Champion xyz (2)” and so forth?

In fact, why not let ranks go on infinitely? Why stop at 80? You see, with just a little bit of thought, Anet would have then created an infinite system of progression that would never end. I think that is very sustainable.

I have another idea! They could introduce “seasons” where everyone’s rank for that season goes to zero. And people can rank up within that season while still maintaining their “overall rank”. This would not discourage newer players from facing too great a hurdle since they can always start anew for the next season.

And these are just off the top of my head. Progression can be made infinite in hundreds of ways. If I can think of these, other people whose job it is to do so can surely come up with nicer ideas.

“But who would leave? Those who are only there for rewards and don’t care about the competitive spirit?”

How does “playing for rewards” vs “playing for competitive spirit” affect someone’s gameplay? Tell me, when in a match, are you able to look at what someone’s doing and divine their reasons for playing? “That necro used wells. He must have the competitive spirit! Whereas that mesmer over there is PU. He’s obviously playing for rewards!”.

I mean…how does it even matter why people are playing. Their playstyle doesn’t change. Their win/loss percentage has nothing to do with their motivations…so how can PvP be “better off” without players motivated by progression?

Speaking of DoTA, the MMR is now visible to other players – Guild Wars 2 doesn’t allow even that. At least that would have given some visible progression metric. But no….

And then there’s the whole phrase “competitive PvP environment”. What does that even mean? You think because progression is important to me, I am not competitive?

But all that is moot – at the age of 33, I do not need other people telling my why I should play. Especially since it affects no one but me. Moralizing is a very unattractive quality. Just learn to live and let live.

The moralizing is strong in this thread:

1. " I’d argue that progression doesn’t make a game more fun" – it does for me

2. " it’s very easy to focus on the carrot" – I like carrots

3. “You look for another carrot. If there isn’t one, you don’t feel like playing” – luckily, these are digital goods with no cost to them. We can have 10 million carrots with the click of a button. Or really long term carrots. Like r80 used to be.

4. “What should get you hooked in a PvP game is the competition” – Oh it should, is it? Tell me more about how you think I should enjoy my game.

5. " People don’t have the right attitudes to make it stick." – But you just admitted that with the right carrots, people will stick on. Moreover, I just showed you that carrots can be created without effort.

6. “Getting some extra PVE perks while PVPing is nice, but you can’t have it as your sole reason to PVP” – We want PvP perks, not PvE perks

Seriously – stop judging other people for their reasons for playing. You remind me of these self righteous people judging others for taking photos instead of “enjoying the scene”. This xkcd comic is made just for you: https://xkcd.com/1314/

Bottom line: Why on earth do you care about the motivations of someone else playing?

Edit: Just saw above reply. Response:

Consider that before Fischer negotiated high match fees against Spasky in Iceland, chess players were paid abysmally. So badly, that the former chess world champion for 27 years Emanuel Lasker didn’t even keep chess as his primary profession! The same goes for just about every famous chess player including of course Paul Morphy. The Russians were the only ones able to dedicate so much time to it since the government was also involved.

Guess who dominated the Chess scene without exception till Fischer arrived? The Russians.

But what happened when Fischer showed the world how chess players should be compensated? The scene exploded and has never been the same. Every single grandmaster in chess today loves the game. But if you were to suddenly take away the “carrots” as you call them, you think they would continue to play chess professionally?

There are always primary and secondary motivations for an activity. And often, the secondary motivation is the real lynchpin. The real justification. Chess players love playing chess. That’s the primary motivation. But the secondary motivation is money. Take that away, and see how many of them continue to pursue it as passionately as they do now.

Similarly for PvP, there are primary and secondary motivations. The primary motivation is fun. The secondary motivation is rewards. Without the secondary motivation, people just wont’ play.

In fact…let Anet conduct an experiment. Let them try it. Let them for 1 month, take away all rewards of playing in PvP. Let’s see what happens to the population. Or does anyone want to guess?

Leodon.1564:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Covis.6037:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Do people not want to win because of the joy of competition anymore? Like, anyone anywhere? Always with needing rewards (material or recognition) to be incentivized to partake in the thrill of a competitive activity.

play a game for 3 years. play it without any rewards. play it without any real progression. play it daily.

I played Counter-Strike for 5 years straight. I played for the fun of it. I never leveled up, earned new guns, gained new traits, played in any leagues (though I almost joined one of the newbie CAL leagues), or anything like that.

Years and years of the same maps, the same guns, the same everything.

It just surprises me how people can’t just do something for the enjoyment of doing it anymore. Everything always has to have a level up mechanic, or some arbitrary point-accumulation, or titles or skins or etc.

I feel like an old man, wondering why all the kids these days can’t just enjoy their time playing with plastic toys, with their new-fangled gadgets and gizmos and flashy lights.

I feel the same way (played CS for 3 years for the fun of it) but I am old school also.

Like muscarine, the poster above, I used to be a hermit in the mists before any of the current rewards were implemented and know exactly what he means. People who enjoy PVPing know about the zone/rush you can get into when you’re focus gets to a high level and your fighting experience becomes an intoxicating mixture of destruction and art. I PVP for those moments and when I no longer feel that, I know its time for me to take a break or quit the game.

Getting some extra PVE perks while PVPing is nice, but you can’t have it as your sole reason to PVP (as some posters here seem to be suggesting) or you will have a miserable time.

I don’t think anyone in the world is stopping you from getting your rush. And I don’t think you – or anyone else – should tell others what their sole reason to PvP should be.

“You can’t have it as your sole reason” – why not? How does it affect you? It doesn’t. Live and let live. You play for your reasons. I’ll play for mine. You don’t get to dictate why other people should play.

Are you guys really able to get good mileage out of dhuumfire? I’m finding that in fights these days there really is a huge amount of CC. And with the AA having a 1 second cast time, between CCs, dodges, blinds, other invulns and blocks, I hardly ever get to actually use my GM build defining trait…

I love the idea of dhuum. But I’m just not getting much mileage

SlayerSixx.5763:

bhagwad.4281:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Do people not want to win because of the joy of competition anymore? Like, anyone anywhere? Always with needing rewards (material or recognition) to be incentivized to partake in the thrill of a competitive activity.

Cue the self righteous dude who feels he should tell other people why they should play and which motives are “better” than others.

He never said his motives were better.

You play this game for fun. Competition (read real competition between two equal sides) is fun. The cash should be the cherry on top for the people who attempt to go pro.

Also, I agree with the rest of the suggestions here. We need more frequent PvP ladder systems with more PvP specific cosmetics. Honestly, at this point, I don’t know what anet is doing. All the players are asking for is quite literally balance and cosmetics. These used to be the only two things GW2 had. Now it doesn’t even have that lol.

I disagree. One does not get to define “fun” for other people. Competition is fun, but it’s not the only thing. Lots of people found getting ranks “fun”. Or unlocking tons of PvP only gear was “fun”. The best part? No one is stopping Anet from catering to all these groups! This is not a zero sum game!

We can have competition. And we can have ranks. And we can have lots more exclusive PvP only skins and prestige gear. We can have it all!

P.S The poster was definitely implying that the “joy of competition” is superior to others. Hence the phrasing “Like anyone, anywhere” and the form of question “Do people not want…”.

It’s like an old timer for example talking about the good old times. “Young people these days! With all their fancy iPods and jeans and distracted all the time. Does no one just stop and pause and smell the roses anymore? Like anyone, anywhere?”

Sure, he hasn’t explicitly said “my way is better”, but that’s exactly the sentiment he wants to convey.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Do people not want to win because of the joy of competition anymore? Like, anyone anywhere? Always with needing rewards (material or recognition) to be incentivized to partake in the thrill of a competitive activity.

Cue the self righteous dude who feels he should tell other people why they should play and which motives are “better” than others.

butch.8136:

bhagwad.4281:

What are you aiming for when you want to build a competitive scence? Solo players are every bit as competitive as pre mades. I remember when they had solo q, they even had separate leaderboards. Now that was competitive.

The only problem was rewards. You can’t disallow soloers in team q since that would mean unacceptable wait times – no one would do it. But if the rewards for team q are higher, I’m always going to solo in the team q.

I’m not saying they should remove the solo experience, hence after 3 years that would be a dumb move. But they should push the team environment more, because that’s where it’s at (or should be atleast).

You can build a team only queue. But you should make it worth it. Otherwise, yes, people won’t join.

But hey, they have a team leaderboard planned. We’ll see how that works out.
If you think that’ll be representative of anything with solo/duo’s mixed in than you’re very wrong.
You’re basically saying the opposite of me. More solo, less team. And that’s not how it should be.

I don’t know why it should be anything. Let people team up if they want to. Let people play solo if they want to. There’s no reason to prefer one over the other. In fact, there are a lot more solo players than team players – so if anything, the former needs to be catered to before the latter.

Does anyone miss ranks yet? One of the incentives for me to play was to get higher and higher ranks. I need some goal.

Right now, it’s getting all the Ambrite skins. No idea what will keep me motivated after that.

butch.8136:

bhagwad.4281:

butch.8136:

Balance is an ongoing process, people will always be ‘mad’.
What this game needs, since launch, is a competitive infrastructure.
Tons of threads and feedback, but we still don’t have a decent infrastructure. (though slowly but surely it’s getting “there”)

It’s a teamgame in its very nature but there is literally no incentive to team up except for some organized tournaments:
Pushing the soloq experience instead of a team/pug experience.

Focussing on the casual and the top end, while ignoring the “casual competitive” kept the pvp population small:
Hotjoin harmed the game in a indescribable way (skilllevel of players, ranks, population of other queues, enjoyment of the gamemode, etc.)
Pushing streamed tournaments organized by third parties because thats what esports entails these days. But you need to get there first, honestly. You need a casual competitive scene as a backbone of your pvp.
We don’t want to sign up on a third party platform, deal with all the delays and inconsistency, face the high end, etc.

Building a casual competitive scene requires a robust infrastructure:
- Focus on teams. A teamqueue is needed obviously. Better rewards in that teamqueue.
- Automated tournaments (a la gw1). A more competitive platform than the usual ranked queues but it has higher stakes.
- Hell while at it, add a replay system (a la gw1…again) with all the AT’s on it (and the third party tournaments).

It could have issues:
- Every system needs a population, which gw2 pvp always had issues with.
But, your decisions and systems should still be focussed on teamplay/queue. Take some risk.
- Add a requirement to AT’s with tickets (sounds familiar eh) so that people still run the ranked teamq’s.
- etc.

Anyway, don’t know why I still type this up but w/e.

I strongly disagree with better rewards in teamq. Why should players be penalized or rewarded for a particular playstyle? We need a teamq obviously. But no differences in rewards please. Or else people (like me) will simply solo q in the team q.

Also, we need higher rewards for higher MMR matchups.

In this scenario there would be no soloq in teamq. Only teams/pugs against teams/pugs.
Stronghold/conquest, gw2 gameplay in its entirety, is teambased first and foremost (rotational play over mechanical play).
Why is there so much rage/frustration (regardless of matchup) in gw2pvp? Because you can hardly carry with your individual skill, unless the skill level differs greatly. You depend greatly on your teammates.

Unless they add voicecoms, there should be a hard split between a full teamq and soloq. And ofcourse you need incentives for teamq because that’s what you’re aiming for when you want to build a competitive scene (regardless of ‘esports’).

What are you aiming for when you want to build a competitive scence? Solo players are every bit as competitive as pre mades. I remember when they had solo q, they even had separate leaderboards. Now that was competitive.

The only problem was rewards. You can’t disallow soloers in team q since that would mean unacceptable wait times – no one would do it. But if the rewards for team q are higher, I’m always going to solo in the team q.

Time to put the Phantasmal Fury vs Duelist debate to rest.

Assume base crit probability = c

Scenario 1: Phantasmal fury enabled

Total crit probability = c+0.2

Sharper imags inflicts 1 stack of bleeding on crit. Ergo, expected number of bleeds per phantasmal duelist hit:

c+0.2 —-- (1)

Scenario 2: Duelist’s Discipline

Expected bleeds per hit with duelist’s discipline = 0.3×2 (33% chance with 2 bleed stacks) = 0.6 —-— (2)

Now here’s the key part. Sharper images can trigger at the same time duelist’s discipline can trigger, since only Phantasmal Fury and Duelist’s discipline compete with each other.

Therefore, expected bleeds per hit with sharper images = c (only 1 bleed stack). —- (3)

Expected number of bleeds with duelist’s discipline therefore = expected bleed from sharper images + expected bleeds from duelist’s discipline = (2) + (3) = c+0.6 —-- (4)

Final result:

Expected bleeds with phantasmal fury = (1) = c+0.2
Expected bleeds with duelist’s discipline = (4) = c+0.6

(4) > (1) always

Conclusion: Duelist’s discipline always yields a higher bleed amount with regard to the dueling phantasm alone regardless of base crit probability.

Now this obviously becomes more complex if you have another multi hitting phantasm like the Berserker or the warden. We can look at that as well. I’ll have to take into consideration the number of hits of the warden as well as the berserker. But that’s also a bit misleading since the warden hits are much more easily avoided. The results of this equation (if calculated) will heavily depend on the assumptions made.

But if we’re only talking about the pistol, then duelist’s discipline seems to hold a clear advantage over phantasmal fury as far as the expected bleed stacks are concerned. We obviously haven’t taken into consideration the additional damage itself due to phantasmal fury. But a comparison of those two will also have to include the values for condition damage and power.

butch.8136:

Balance is an ongoing process, people will always be ‘mad’.
What this game needs, since launch, is a competitive infrastructure.
Tons of threads and feedback, but we still don’t have a decent infrastructure. (though slowly but surely it’s getting “there”)

It’s a teamgame in its very nature but there is literally no incentive to team up except for some organized tournaments:
Pushing the soloq experience instead of a team/pug experience.

Focussing on the casual and the top end, while ignoring the “casual competitive” kept the pvp population small:
Hotjoin harmed the game in a indescribable way (skilllevel of players, ranks, population of other queues, enjoyment of the gamemode, etc.)
Pushing streamed tournaments organized by third parties because thats what esports entails these days. But you need to get there first, honestly. You need a casual competitive scene as a backbone of your pvp.
We don’t want to sign up on a third party platform, deal with all the delays and inconsistency, face the high end, etc.

Building a casual competitive scene requires a robust infrastructure:
- Focus on teams. A teamqueue is needed obviously. Better rewards in that teamqueue.
- Automated tournaments (a la gw1). A more competitive platform than the usual ranked queues but it has higher stakes.
- Hell while at it, add a replay system (a la gw1…again) with all the AT’s on it (and the third party tournaments).

It could have issues:
- Every system needs a population, which gw2 pvp always had issues with.
But, your decisions and systems should still be focussed on teamplay/queue. Take some risk.
- Add a requirement to AT’s with tickets (sounds familiar eh) so that people still run the ranked teamq’s.
- etc.

Anyway, don’t know why I still type this up but w/e.

I strongly disagree with better rewards in teamq. Why should players be penalized or rewarded for a particular playstyle? We need a teamq obviously. But no differences in rewards please. Or else people (like me) will simply solo q in the team q.

Also, we need higher rewards for higher MMR matchups.

I’ve been solo playing PvP for 3 years and have never heard of the Abjured. For that matter, I’ve not heard of any PvP guild. Just an indication of how the playerbase can be completely unconcernced about what tournaments, premades, and things like that. Despite how I think Anet wants us to be…

AlphatheWhite.9351:

[sarcasm]
Yes, because that would certainly make sense.
A trait designed to benefit all two of our pistol attacks only works with one of them.
I can see how that would make sense to the devs.
[\sarcasm]

Believe me, I would love this to work with regular duelist attacks – I’d opened a thread on this over a week ago.

I just think that if it wasn’t dev intended, this would have been fixed by now. I mean Anet has already released two patches with bugfixes et. This trait not working is huge. I mean…it’s build defining and doesn’t work. There’s no way they could have just passed that up and instead focused on useless things like mantra heal etc.

The only rational explanation I can come up with is that the devs don’t want it to work with duelist attacks.

It’s possible that the devs think this is intended behavior. Maybe they think 33% chance of inflicting 2 stacks of bleeds along with sharper images is simply too strong for the large number of hits a duelist has.

Maybe it’s only supposed to work with magic bullet…

And here’s yet another 1v1 scenario. Two players meet at an undefended skyhammer. It simply cannot be said that a 1v1 should never ever happen here.

Besetment.9187:

Rose tinted glasses huh? People forget the random arena (RA) sync queuing or the fact that RA teams with a monk were alot more likely to go through to team arenas (TA) than any non monk team.

People are also forgetting why TA got completely removed and why getting promoted to TA was a bad thing. They were dominated by smiteway groups to the extent that smiter’s boon got nerfed so hard it coined the term “s-booning” (meaning to nerf something so hard the intent is to effectively stop anyone ever using it).

After smiteway there were 3x perma distortion mindblast/rodgort ele + 1x monk/warrior stance teams that you could never, ever beat in a random group.

There were very good reasons why TA was removed from the game and replaced with the sealed deck codex arena. It isn’t much different to getting farmed by 5 man premades in GW2 ranked queue, except due to the complex skill system in GW1, it was alot worse.

Queuing in GW1 was generally horrible because there were far too many game modes that split the number of concurrent pvp players too many times so you had to wait an eternity to get a gvg. Top 50 gvg teams had to wait over an hour to get a match during off peak times. And half the time it was against a team that wasn’t even ranked. No leaderboard decay ensured that within 2 years, the top 1000 gvg leaderboard was clogged with 90% dead or defunct guilds and smurfs.

Tombs/HA cheated in the sense that if there weren’t enough teams you just skipped straight to scarred earth/courtyard. But Tombs/HA was and will always be a rank farm.

I loved GW1 but queuing and matchmaking in that game was seriously dysfunctional. Its just unbelievable to me how anyone who actually played it within the last 8 years could hold it up as a pillar of design.

I think the OP was referring only to Random Arenas (RA). Which was indeed awesome. The other game modes…well they catered to a much more niche community. Just like in GW2, the overwhelmingly large playerbase just wants a good solo experience.

Elegie.3620:

Hi,

bhagwad.4281:

Elegie.3620:

Some builds are better at 1v1 than others, for sure. I don’t see the problem with that, though: as the OP has stated, the game is a team effort, if you find yourself dueling on a point when you don’t have the right build for it, then either you’re greedy (so be punished if you cannot overcome the build handicap), or you’ve got a big rotation issue (your role is to be doing something else somewhere else).

So at least we agree that 1v1s do have a role, and that they cannot be ignored. Great. Consequently, a build that is too good in 1v1s for all classes is clearly unbalanced.

I guess I’ve been unclear then, sorry about that. Generally, a 1v1 can have two outcomes:

• One player dies, conceding both the objective and the points brought by his death,
• No player dies, so the one not having the control of the objective is useless.

So basically, 1v1 are always bad for one of the two players, and thus should never happen, unless a player (the loser) makes an unsafe bet (i.e. being greedy) rather than a rational decision (+1 elsewhere). In other words, 1v1 don’t have a role. Losing an objective is bad; dying while losing it is terrible.

1v1 do happen though, you’re right about that. Team compositions may not be optimal (or be hard-countered), players skills vary (especially in their rotational knowledge) and above all: this is a game after all, and people want to be greedy and fight and kill, and not be punished for their errors.

I don’t think one should (or even could) balance about that, though. A player having a weak 1v1 build (or more accurately: a build not letting him conquer or defend an objective while staying alive), should at least display a superior map awareness to avoid 1v1s, or refuse the fight, or escape the attacker, or stall for time until a friend comes and +1s…

As for builds being “too good in 1v1” for all classes… Well, in my experience, every build has its counter-builds. Some builds are better at 1v1 than others, but they all have their nemesis.

Regards.

A 1v1 is not always bad for one of the players. Consider a 1v1 at a previously uncontested mid point. Without knowing more about the situation, there is no way you can say that it is an unqualified bad thing for either player to leave. Because then in your scenario, both players will leave to +1 elsewhere and mid will remain alone and uncontested again!

Also factor in the fact that the outcome of any given 1v1 cannot be predicted. The thief you meet may or may not be good. The mesmer you meet may or may not be running PU. The necro on point may or may not be power. Each of these variables makes it impossible to decide beforehand with 100% certainty whether or not to engage. Making a decision that turns out to be wrong cannot be called a “mistake” since you’re starting with imperfect information. Therefore, making an “unsafe bet” is part and parcel of the game. By definition, all gambles involve risk. If there was no risk, it would not be a gamble.

Any strategy in an unbalanced zero sum game involves risk. Here, a “rational decision” does not mean taking no risks. It means taking informed risks. And those informed risks often include engaging in 1v1s.

The fact that you mention that every build has its counter, is proof that you think the game is already balanced around 1v1s. If however, there was a certain build that beat all other builds in a 1v1, that would be an “unbalanced against 1v1” scenario. What is balance after all? It doesn’t mean that every build has to be viable against every other. It means that (among other things), that no single build is supreme against all others in a stand alone scenario.

So now it’s merely a question of deciding whether or not the above statement is true. Is it true that every build has its counter build? If the answer is “yes”, then the game is indeed balanced already around 1v1s and statements saying “GW2 cannot be balanced around 1v1s” are meaningless because it already is.

Oh my, the nostalgia :’( . For the first time in 4 years, I went back to visit my page of mesmer domination skills and seeing the hexes… http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Domination_Magic

Guilt
Empathy
Diversion
Backfire
Mind Wrack

(swoons)

Morwath.9817:

bhagwad.4281:

PvP in GW1 was very different. No insta kills, CC was rare, combat was more strategic with resource management, no blinding flashes, and no pet zoo (other than MM necro, but they weren’t used much for PvP because the corpses could only come from the dead bodies of other players!)

And as others have pointed out, matches finished much faster.

-> Spikes were viable tactic for pretty long in competitive play.
-> Hammer Warriors, Gale, Interrupt Rangers/Mesmers etc…
-> http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blinding_Flash

We’re talking about Random Arenas – i.e. solo q where no premade coordination was possible. Also apart from the assassin, I don’t remember too many gap closers either. You really couldn’t be “insta-gibbed” – not even light armored professions like monks who were almost always the first target anyway.

Not to mention skill bars allowed you to interrupt key skills. If an elementalist had burst skills, a mesmer could easily shut them down. I know because I played a mesmer, an elementalist, a ritualist, a monk, and a ranger.

“Instant death” was not a reality in practice. Maybe…maybe I remember as a Mesmer I could use Aneurysm when the mana of the opponent was low and they were a casting profession to deal some 200 damage in one shot. Otherwise, no.

Imagine…all this without even dodges! So you can imagine how bad it is in GW2 where with dodges you can still be locked down and killed quickly with things like gap closers and stealth, CC spam etc.

Salamander.2504:

Laraley.7695:

runeblade.7514:

Laraley.7695:

runeblade.7514:

Laraley.7695:

runeblade.7514:

Just put in a in-game Voice communication instead. Now, pugs can reap the benefits.

Yeah, the problem is half of the people wouldn’t use it.

You see half of the pugs not using it, I see a half more of the pugs using it.

This would let more players form actual teams because the game loses the barrier and the players do not need to download third party voice communications. Also they would form teams because they want to play with players that want to dedicate teamwork by using voice com.

Meaning, OP can just form a “LFG Must have teamwork!”

The point is it wouldn’t solve the issue.

Is dumbing down teamwork the issue? Because I don’t want to solve that issue.

No, separating the queues is.

Is the player base large enough to do so?

When the two were separate, I don’t remember having long wait times for solo. I think the playerbase is definitely large enough. Maybe it would be larger for team q, but since most of us solo, that’s not really a problem. We can’t spoil the game just because a small number of premades are being incovenienced.

PvP in GW1 was very different. No insta kills, CC was rare, combat was more strategic with resource management, no blinding flashes, and no pet zoo (other than MM necro, but they weren’t used much for PvP because the corpses could only come from the dead bodies of other players!)

And as others have pointed out, matches finished much faster.

runeblade.7514:

Laraley.7695:

runeblade.7514:

Just put in a in-game Voice communication instead. Now, pugs can reap the benefits.

Yeah, the problem is half of the people wouldn’t use it.

You see half of the pugs not using it, I see a half more of the pugs using it.

This would let more players form actual teams because the game loses the barrier and the players do not need to download third party voice communications. Also they would form teams because they want to play with players that want to dedicate teamwork by using voice com.

Meaning, OP can just form a “LFG Must have teamwork!”

Most pugs won’t use it. The reason is that we don’t want to get involved so deeply with other people. Chat is nice and impersonal – you don’t have to hear others talk, or listen to their voice. And you can have decent teamwork just by looking at the map.

Voice chat is…something that takes the fun out of being alone.

I don’t understand how anyone can defend fear not being applied when stability is on. Let’s recap. Fear does two things. It has two components.

1. It is a condition that (can) apply ticks of damage like bleeding, poison, or burning
2. It is a CC that ticks each second

Now stability blocks CCs. Does stability also block bleeding? No. Can stability prevent burning? No.

Therefore, stability should block the CC aspect of fear and allow through the condition aspect. This…is really very clear and obvious. What’s really funny is people saying “Oh, it’s unique! It works like this!”. You can say the same thing about any bug.

Oh and if I’m not mistaken, as of now I can’t corrupt a warrior’s rampage stability to fear right? Or is that also a “unique” mechanic?

Face it. This is a bug. There has never been any deep thought by the developers over whether or not the condition of fear should apply over stability.