Guild Wars 2

Numot.3965:

knight.8926:

Numot.3965:

This isn’t a thread about thief burst, this is a matter of the mesmer burst in question. Is it too high? certainly, since even heavily armed targets can take the same level of damage from a full combo, and its hard to actually counter attack/punish/ avoid. Thief and warrior burst damage is fairly easily avoided or negated, and then can be punished. It is much more difficult to do this to the mesmer’s burst build at the moment.

dude how hard is it too see the illusions running towards you for MW compared to an instant thief steal + BS combo?

When you normally shatter combo its a pointblank shatter and you have the target immobilized. That person is gonna eat your damage most the time. Shatters are fine outside of that instance, except for the fact they are rather awkward to dodge to begin with, since there is a small window to avoid the shatter, or else the illusions chase back into range. You can intentionally use this to things like stagger dazes on people with diversion.

The problem isn’t shatter’s themselves, its a combination of factors that come together for a large spike of hard to avoid damage while being very safe to execute.

And its AOE. Its hard enough to keep track of the clones behavior and the dodge window when you’re fighting a mesmer 1v1, but in a team fight? Hope you’re not next to your team member getting exploded because you’re gonna explode too.

knight.8926:

condiments.8043:

knight.8926:

condiments.8043:

However you try to justify it this is ridiculous. At least a thief has an entire build devoted to being a quick gib setup, whereas a mesmer can run this setup and have…

1)Instant 10k AREA BURST with more for single target.
2)Portal for control over home point and middle, allowing to contribute in contested team battles.
3)Time warp to give a team area HASTE for 10 seconds for quickness stomps and quick kills.
4)The best duelist in the game.

And people wonder why mesmer is required on every team….

F1 + 1 ,222222222222222222222222

Nice non-rebuttal. I wouldn’t mind thief burst getting nerfed either, its just hilarious listening mesmers try to justify this. They bring so much more to the team other than their damage, which is in many ways more insane than thieves. The only thing they are lacking in is on demand mobility, otherwise you’d be seeing 3 mesmer teams dominating every game.

then let’s not argue on the fact that mesmers need to use different types of skills to actually be useful and your complaining about that fact.

Every class uses different skills to be useful, hence why they are useful. Very few classes bring such all-encompassing utility and damage that the mesmer has in one build. Mesmer’s should have more viable builds for tournies, but this variant is WAYY over the top to the point it outshines anything else they could bring.

knight.8926:

condiments.8043:

However you try to justify it this is ridiculous. At least a thief has an entire build devoted to being a quick gib setup, whereas a mesmer can run this setup and have…

1)Instant 10k AREA BURST with more for single target.
2)Portal for control over home point and middle, allowing to contribute in contested team battles.
3)Time warp to give a team area HASTE for 10 seconds for quickness stomps and quick kills.
4)The best duelist in the game.

And people wonder why mesmer is required on every team….

F1 + 1 ,222222222222222222222222

Nice non-rebuttal. I wouldn’t mind thief burst getting nerfed either, its just hilarious listening mesmers try to justify this. They bring so much more to the team other than their damage, which is in many ways more insane than thieves. The only thing they are lacking in is on demand mobility, otherwise you’d be seeing 3 mesmer teams dominating every game.

However you try to justify it this is ridiculous. At least a thief has an entire build devoted to being a quick gib setup, whereas a mesmer can run this setup and have…

1)Instant 10k AREA BURST with more for single target.
2)Portal for control over home point and middle, allowing to contribute in contested team battles.
3)Time warp to give a team area HASTE for 10 seconds for quickness stomps and quick kills.
4)The best duelist in the game.

And people wonder why mesmer is required on every team….

Xolo.3580:

Of course WoW has lost its glamour regarding PvP long ago, but there was a time when PvP was a hell of a lot of fun and I did nothing else, because skill and knowledge of classes mattered a ton! Warcraftmovies.com was full of excellent PvPers making movies back then. Many of them could take on multiple enemies on a regular basis, and not all of them had good gear. The game gave them the chance to play exceptionally well and they used it.

WoW PvP was fun but it had problems like any PvE focused game. Maps came out a snail’s pace, seesaw balancing, limited and the awful progression grind every single expansion. They should have kept it to just battlegrounds and promoted World PvP like the old days.

Problem is to, while these defensive options may seem really strong in small scenarios(1v1, 2v2) you also have to balance around large team battles, when players can die in seconds under focused burst.

Fourth.1567:

New players joining the game to get bursted by a thief or warrior or end up in an endless fight with a bunker is really going to jade their experience which just undermines the whole competitive scene. That’s even if the game is perfectly balanced at the competitive level.

I agree with this point, but I would argue its less about balance with new players and more quality of life. While the lack of playerbase in sPvP could be contributed to new players being “bursted” or facing bunkers(I’m sure people left because of this), I think it was more the framework of the system Anet set up themselves. Players were faced with these barriers and given no opportunity to overcome them with the options provided. Free tournaments had teams of such skill variance that its hard to learn when the majority of your fights aren’t really a challenge either way(either you can’t put up a fight or you stomp players). Of course, we’re all well aware of this, which is why we’re discussing whats wrong.

I think some quality of life changes could extend to balance, only so long as it doesn’t disrupt the game’s design vision regarding how professions interact at the top level. I think its better to provide ways for players to overcome these challenges through easy access to streams, player blogs, or help videos.

People who are considered “casual” in this game aren’t casual in their intent. Most players who play these types of multiplayer games over others do it with the intent that there will be a challenge or learning curve that they will succeed over.
Isn’t that why people play those ridiculous games like starcraft 2, LoL, and counterstrike, etc.? We marvel at the skill of top players and wish to emulate it. They may rage or scream at some things, but they keep coming back. Anet should have had a framework to allow the player to learn without running into roadblocks. They didn’t. It may have succeeded in years past, but there are too many options available now. If a player gets bored he jumps.

Making big balance changes or compromising design vision around these players is generally not a good idea. Many complaints of these players are inherently “visceral” in nature, and limited in view. Balancing systems around those who aren’t aware of how the system interacts in a grand view is means you always will be cleaning up new problems that arise. “Meta”, or where these interactions are apparent at their highest level are generally better to balance around. Even then, slow balancing is better as meta is tenuous.

XiL.4318:

And before you get huffy, there are a thousand studies on the effects of success on cognitive functions. So congrats on all the QPs but science says your success is a crutch and taints your perspective with bias.

People and their psychoanalytical pseudo-science, so ready judge others with unequivocal judgement on shaky grounds and not themselves. XD

He is a good necro and is sharing his perspective. Deal it with.

urinfamousr.7631:

condiments.8043:

Wow, just wow. What pvp are you comparing it to? Pretty much all MMO pvp sucks.

Guild wars 2 pvp is better than 99 percent of MMOs simply because there aren’t shoehorned stat progression mechanics forced upon the PvP scene. My character isn’t cap, and I’ve been playing PvP for months.

On top of that, most other MMOs are predominantly PvE focused, so PvP can be fun, but the lack of overall design focus prevents the game from being good. SWTOR, Aion, WoW, etc. all fall into this box and its why all of the PvP will suck and be niche.

GW2 PvP isn’t successful at the moment because it lacks features, and build variety. We’ll see in the coming months if it will succeed or fail based on their efforts to improve. But from my experience, its the next best PvP next to GW1. Anything else has had a mixture of the above, and clunky unresponsive combat.

are u on crack? better pvp than any mmo wow . if u call 3 shotting people and zerging pvp then yeah best kitten out there…

I’ll take fast paced action gameplay with an even playing field over getting 3 shotted by people who grind endlessly for PvP gear and own everyone. At least GW2 has the decency to respect its player’s time and give them all the options right away, rather than grinding for weeks to have a hope of winning against some people.

Wow, just wow. What pvp are you comparing it to? Pretty much all MMO pvp sucks.

Guild wars 2 pvp is better than 99 percent of MMOs simply because there aren’t shoehorned stat progression mechanics forced upon the PvP scene. My character isn’t cap, and I’ve been playing PvP for months.

On top of that, most other MMOs are predominantly PvE focused, so PvP can be fun, but the lack of overall design focus prevents the game from being good. SWTOR, Aion, WoW, etc. all fall into this box and its why all of the PvP will suck and be niche.

GW2 PvP isn’t successful at the moment because it lacks features, and build variety. We’ll see in the coming months if it will succeed or fail based on their efforts to improve. But from my experience, its the next best PvP next to GW1. Anything else has had a mixture of the above, and clunky unresponsive combat.

Hey thanks for talking to the community about current balance/class representation in current meta. I think more discussion prompted by you guys would help out this community greatly.

Too much of this forum discussion is dominated by people who have no idea what they’re talking about. I had certain beliefs about the meta-game, and then I started watching streams and I saw a very different picture.

I know that is predictable of official forums, but its hard to see what is going on in meta unless you hunt for streams.

Mrbig.8019:

@condiment

notice we’re not talking about “1vs1” balance and BS like those, it’s about shifting the meta into a more enjoyable one.

Ok, things need also to be fixed , and there are TONS of them ( necro minions AI and overall traits, thief utilities, rangers utilities etc etc etc) , but the thing we need FIRST is to shift the meta into a dps pressure one instead of bunker-burst, where things or drop like flies or just won’t die.

it’s boring.

And the tPvP community already knowss that something needs to change: just look at how few they are.

There are more problems to the lack of PvP community then just current meta which is actually shifting to more offensive pressure rather than bunker emphasis anyways.

And then I reiterate my point. You do this by having a reliable framework, and building more viable options on top of that. “Shifting” meta is a far more difficult and nebulous thing, and will often resist or subvert expectations. Like I said, knowledge of meta and context are important to the building of options.

If you guys are convinced this game won’t work thats fine. I won’t submit to this idea that “nerfing burst/bunker” will heal things.

XiL.4318:

GW2 PvP has completely missed the mark and there is nothing definitive on the horizon that suggests anything will change in the near or even far flung future. They might end up building the best PvP any MMO has ever seen, but no one is going to be around to care that wasn’t required by fanboi law to suffer the wrath of garbage games until the bitter end.

By your judgement the time has already passed and further discussion is irrelevant. I don’t hold the same belief, so I will continue to discuss things on such basis.

Its not about sticking a game out “loyalty”, lol. If you play the game and have fun, keep playing. If not, don’t. I like talking about the game as its a fun hobby. I’m trying to draw others into deeper discussion here beyond the facile and banal banter about the game at the moment.

Mrbig.8019:

They could do both, don’t you think ?

Indeed some things need fixing in order to be good, but with the current met, for istance, what could a trap thief bring to the table ?

Let’s say what they do, you’ll say.

But how long is people going to wait before going away definitevely ?

You have to understand a constantly shifting balance emphasis will NOT make this game better despite what you all think. This is what happens to most games that shift class strengths quickly on perceived imbalances based on “visceral” responses(combat log whines, people whining about 1v1). Things imbalanced are often propped up through a combination of interacting elements. This is why things like meta are so important, where mechanics/gameplay interactions are at their most apparent, and system flaws are exploited ruthlessly. Unfortunately, even this is even deceitful, as environments supporting “meta” will often crumple when certain counters become more prevalent. Hence, why slow balanced design is more important.

A game must establish a relatively reliable framework so developers can establish how utilities and traits will interact within the contextual framework of how the game is being played. This is about design, people. Very few games get it right, and justly so. Its very hard.

This should have been done much earlier, but unfortunately this game released with a ton of PvE content as well. We’ll see how things go when we get better metrics, a spectator mode, and ratings. We’ll just have to hope it develops, but I’m hopeful. Its still fun for me.

Mrbig.8019:

If i’d ever think at a good benchmark to start the game from scraps, it would be the ele, not the guardian.

The ele can do anything, and it would be able to do everything with any weapon set they want, as long as they start nerfing that ridicolous scorch or overpoweredness D/D currently is, overshadowing any other set the ele would choose ( aside S/D for pure bunkering builds).

Their balance philosophy makes poor sense, also.

Example:

Thief:

if the thief is meant to be “the master of burst”, WHY DID YOU EVEN CREATED sets like S/D ( nerfed to hell) , D/P ( never been viable from the start) and P/P ?

With mobility and burst, also with conquest mode, don’t you ever think that ALL PLAYERS would go S/P or D/D in order to have a role in a team ?
(P/D and D/D condition is a niche role, altough very viable).

Another example:

Warrior:

the warrior is less tanky than a guardian, while not prviding any difference on damage or support ( the infamous meditation build + any consacration/shout you want comes at mind)

the warrior is less bursty than a thief, while not having the same mobility/escape capability if the burst goes wrong, neither having the same unpredictability ( popping from nowhere).

1/2 of warriors weapon simply make no sense, being severely subpar: longbow, rifle, OH sword, OH axe, OH mace.

Most of its utilities ( like banners, berserker stance or “on my mark” which is the most ridicolous one, lol) have no purpose, and altough shouts are quite good, the shout warrior doesn’t really achieve anything if not dying in a couple of mesmer’s shatters.

The thing saddening me the most is that it seems aNet wanted to polarize the professions into what they said into their balance phylosophy, instead of really trying to increase the number of viable builds: thieves polarized into burst (D/D or S/P) or conditions ( D/D or P/D), mesmers polarized into shattercrap, necro polarized into 30-30-10-0-0 build, eles polarized into D/D and so on.

At least, with huge nerfs to bunkers and burst, we could try again.

It’s very hard to get any worse than this.

The only reason such things “polarized” is because other available operate adequately within the environment currently. I’d rather support Anet bugfixing or buffing traits and utilities so they can contribute to the game with new viable builds rather than nerf the solid ground for the vain hope people will consider less viable options. Ex. Thief burst getting nerfed won’t make them consider going to use traps over things shadow step, and shadow refuge. They’ll still suck.

Both elementalist and guardian can effectively run balanced, support, offensive and defensive related playstyles that the community claims to be non-existent. Guardians can effectively bunker, duelists and harasser with the right builds. I mean watch any PZ stream when its up, and take a look at the difference in playstyles between holly jolly and kaypud. Even elementalist, while a great class, still needs a ton of work in its trait lines and utilities(lol conjures).

Even thief, like you just said, have a couple viable options(I’m actually going to push my S/D build as soon as I get my team together). Its just in the current state of the game, damage modifiers in traits, itemization and utilities outweigh anything else a thief can bring to a team. All other options just aren’t very good in comparison, what can thief do support his team? There was the venom meta for a while(which was a WAYY worse situation imo), but there needs to be more. What could a trap thief bring to the table? What can they bring other than damage? Lets BUFF that.

What this game needs is a building of class options rather than some knee-jerk balance shift in the HOPE it gets better. That isn’t how good things are designed. Anet has a solid framework for things. Now its placing the rest of the pieces into the jigsaw.

Lordrosicky.5813:

XiL.4318:

They truly just need to force the Bunkers to have multiple allies or multiple enemies around them constantly in order to remain Bunkery. Like Necro.

Wanna kill a Necro Bunker? Leave the point and let any attrition thief, ele, guardian, memser just solo him. You will win 100% of the time. It should be that way for every bunker. Without a group to fortify you, yer just an empty building. PERIOD

Like a shout warrior. There should be support and damage type builds. Not just total tanks which cannot be taken down.

Anet can do that by buffing the traits/utilities related to this build within team scenarios IMO. Nerfing classes ability to mitigate damage will actually end up killing support if all you have to do is just cleave the crap out of points with AOE damage.

Imagine the Necro metagame now, but way worse.

The concept of “bunker” isn’t something particular to guild wars, its just that a lot of survival/self-sufficiency has shifted onto the players instead of godly healers bestowing their heals upon others to bloat gameplay matches. Even in those games, making a healer capable of being downed in 1v1 scenarios puts their viability into question given that team fights involve coordinated pressure/CC. If healers don’t have the capability to heal themselves against one player, how can they possibly heal against these attacks? Balance with healers is always a tenuous shift between damage overpowering healing in which condition/dots/heavy offense burst or pressure cleave train comps rule supreme, or healing out-pacing pressure where “burst windows” are needed to take players down.

Same thing would probably happen in GW2 if bunkers are brought down to the point of being downed by one player(which can still happen). How in the world are they going to survive people stack heavy offensive pressure/cleave comps and that melt individuals in coordinated burst?

Its not like everyone in guild wars 2 runs burst or complete glass builds to succeed. There “are” balanced builds that are viable with some classes, its just that certain classes have stronger attributes by design. Anet doesn’t need to chop their game for all the melodramatic forum warriors contributing their “wisdom”, they just need to do some hard balancing. A lot of utilities and traits are crap, and aren’t in line with how the current game operates. If any class should be a yardstick for design, look at guardian.

Improved drop tables? Its still just gear strictly within that rank tier right? They need to add some variance to the reward in the chests. I’m rank 36, and have so many of the reagents for the mystic forge and nothing to craft or look forward to for the next couple of ranks. :/

XiL.4318:

You don’t get it and don’t want to. Heartseeker is not used like that in practice. Heartseeker is spammed as a means to drain health bars completely, not as the intended finisher. And when you can use a skill 3 times with zero cooldown (up to 5 times with traits) that hits for 5k to 10k damage on each hit, while the target is running, and from range, with zero chance to miss, you create a problem.

And heartseeker is the hardest skill to dodge of any other skill because you might dodge once but here comes 2 to 4 more Heartseekers, and with quickness they come so fast that you cannot not even dodge again before all of them hit you.

It is stupid, it is broken, and EVERYONE hates it. Even thieves talk kitten about other thieves that Heartseeker spam because it is literally an IWIN BUTTON.

There is no valid argument to the contrary. The number one complaint I see in PvP is Heartseeker spam. Period. It is stupid OP to allow a single skill with no cooldown to spam damage greater that the highest hitpoint tank build possible.

Even if the skill was a 3 tier skill that ended in a 3rd step finisher that did WAY more damage… it would be preferable to all parties involved to this nonsense that is Heartseeker spam. It is just plain stupid and EVERYONE hates it except thieves that use it. Period.

Get your WvW numbers out of this sub-forum. Even on my valkyrie ele with d/d or s/d don’t get hit close to his numbers on full hp targets. Low hp? Yeah you’ll get smacked with 5k against glass thieves.

It could probably due with an additional ini point(4 points instead of 3), but its hardly as mind-blowingly effective as you guys make it out to be. Any thief that spams heartseeker, or misses his backstab is at a serious disadvantage in a fight.

Play for one night and pass such sweeping judgement? Even in Guild wars 1 you had to get over the initial feeling of controlling a character that feels like they have bricks tied to their feet. The PvP isn’t perfect(like others have said, it has to be stronger feature wise), the core gameplay mechanics and feel of the game is really solid.

I’ve been playing sPvP since early september. I’m definitely eagerly awaiting the Jan/Feb updates.

Phantaram.1265:

much <3

Xeph.4513:

Thank you <3

You guys rock. More streeaams please.

Use to run 10/30/30/0/0 and its a really good spec, if not one of the best in the game for dueling. The spec however lacks a powerful form of burst damage, so I shifted things around a bit.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlUmiOHey9E95Ex2jeqTeqVgmdPuqVrKA;TsAg0CnoQygkAJLSOkkItsYQxsAA

While this build lacks the sustainability provided by shadow arts, it still retains the inherent survivability and utility components of the set(infiltrator’s strike, even if its bugged the boon strip of flanking strike is still good, cloak and dagger, tactical strike). Its very easy to prey on other glass cannon’s with this set given your mobility options. Tactical strike+haste+auto-attack=significant pressure on anybody given you remain mobile using it versus using pistol whip though you lose the stun, which makes positioning and time important. I’ve had with success with it, but I’ll need to run into more significant competition before I pass ultimate judgement on the build.

Jasher.6580:

condiments.8043:

No one in their right mind is saying you’re not going to get caught by 100 blades. 100 blades can be identified and avoided provided you have the adequate awareness of the situation going on, and through the options provided dodge/build/utility/teamplay. Sometimes, given that this is a multiplayer game, these things will not be available to you, and you will die.

Its not a learn to play issue, its just a matter of acceptance. Sometimes you’ll get caught in embarrassing situations and get taunted, others you will laugh at the warrior as you pick apart his feeble attempts to do damage.

Let it go.

So you’re saying that having a move that one shots people is okay to have in a video game?

Sure as long is there is adequate options to avoid it. It can be pretty fun sometimes fighting good hundred blade warriors who try to stretch your defensive cooldowns thin before trying to land the burst. Adds some adrenaline knowing you can die in a second if you aren’t quick enough. Trust me, those few times getting iced by 100 blades is nothing compared to watching a bunch of poor warriors flailing helplessly in the air after bursting all their cooldowns. Its chow time after that(Watch the evis too though).

No one in their right mind is saying you’re not going to get caught by 100 blades. 100 blades can be identified and avoided provided you have the adequate awareness of the situation going on, and through the options provided dodge/build/utility/teamplay. Sometimes, given that this is a multiplayer game, these things will not be available to you, and you will die.

Its not a learn to play issue, its just a matter of acceptance. Sometimes you’ll get caught in embarrassing situations and get taunted, others you will laugh at the warrior as you pick apart his feeble attempts to do damage.

Let it go.

People need to stop dropping games as soon as they die a couple times in 5v5 too. A teammate loss is felt more terribly in that mode unfortunately.

There is a reason most thieves don’t adopt this build for tournaments. Its undoubtedly strong situationally, but the build forces your playstyle to be so static that its hard for it to function properly. Its strong over a point for the time the caltrops are down allowing for a possible immobilize, but its hard to pressure anyone outside this instance if they have half a brain and decent condition removal. Leaping Death Blossom isn’t really that deadly by itself. These type of thieves tend to melt under concentrated AOE over points as well.

Pistol/dagger is a much better condition build, and most thieves won’t care if caltrops is nerfed in PvP. It will change absolutely nothing about thief play in the long run. Some thieves can make this work, but I haven’t seen it personally.

Purposely getting downed to get rallied? I’m not sure I’d recommend this as a good idea. I mean if you’re absolutely sure the enemy player is about to be downed, then I can see how this would be legitimate strategy, but given how quickly things can change in this game I’d rather stay alive personally.

What if the enemy team roamer shows up from invis/port while your teammate goes for the down and interrupts/puts significant pressure on him? You’ve now put yourself in a deliberately compromised situation that can cost the team the battle, because you wanted to be cute. Nah, auto-regen or self-heal during a retreat is always the safer option.

Getting and securing stomps and reviving is the name of game when it comes to securing victories in team battles. Making the choice between reviving your team-member and downing the enemy is an important tactical element.

In fact removing rally entirely would making the reviving situation worse. You’ve essentially cut out the aggressive form of action out of play(making the choice to go for the stomp to change the tides), making turtling a preferable method(bunkers, +heal to res, res skills). Res skills and res emphasis would be the most important factor as maintaining numbers in team fights will remain the most important factor.

Hey I’m all for making videos, but could you slow the speed a bit next time? Its difficult to tell whats going on.

Ralathar.7236:

All of this in a single character. It’s obviously not balanced. It’s a situation of too many advantages all at once. Their one weak point is supposed to be they are easy to squish, but they are actually harder to kill than other glass cannons while providing competitive or higher damage and possessing many other advantages over others.

Thieves need all those ability options in a competitive situation when deadly coordinated burst can annihilate a GC thief in a second or less. Stealth and the mobility are fantastic, but people fail to mention that thieves don’t have access to absolutely integral boons like stability(leaving them open to CC unless stun breakers are up, which can be instant death if they aren’t), and protection(a big reason why thieves are so squishy overall). These inherent benefits also invalidate them as an adequate point holder, because either a thief is in stealth(no point cap), or on the move dancing on and off the point which can lead to a de-cap. Other boons can be applied through some ability usage(steal mainly), or stealth might stacking, but thieves to have to rely on their key active defense mechanisms to stay alive. Even in stealth, a thief is still vulnerable, except he can’t be actively targeted.

Conditions are also a sore spot against thieves with their low HP totals, and no reliable form of removal besides traits and certain utilities. Which again, lends to their overall un-sustainability in longer encounters like in team fights over a point.

So what does these options imply to thieves? Roam. This post isn’t to state thieves are weak, far from it, but weaken their mobility, damage, and stealth will keep them from performing competitively in their only viable position atm.

I’m a big fan of Phantaramlol and his ele play if you want to check him out.
http://www.twitch.tv/phantaram/b/337361273

Daays.4317:

Fantom.9217:

Been waiting for those since the first or second Beta Weekend.

Don’t hold your breath. ArenaNet has lost their opportunity to create a competitive PVP game in my opinion.

No one is going to come back to a game that they haven’t played in a year because features that should have been implemented at launch are FINALLY in place.

If this was a few years ago I’d agree with you.

But League of Legends has been a massive curve ball to the e-Sports scene. It’s shown that even if you don’t have those things, as long as your development team gets them into the game and people are still behind you, the game will persevere.

LoL went from having none of those at launch to becoming the largest e-Sport out there. So it shows that as long as your game is fun to play, people will eventually come back. And GW2 is fun to play.

Unfortunately this probably means at least a year before the needed infrastructure to the game is implemented.

It might a year until it REALLY takes off in terms of population, but I think we’ll get a lot of the features we want earlier. Custom servers, and matchmaking/ranking will probably come at the same time or very close together which will coincide with aggressive marketing to their playerbase and potentials. I hope spectator mode comes somewhat soon, as that would definitely help with the release of custom servers, but functionality and infrastructure come first IMO.

If the balance patch coming up on the 14th addresses key problems and opens new doors, the pieces could be in place for a revitalization. I know the kneejerk on these forums is for doom and gloom, but I’m more positive about the future.

UnholyVicar.2056:

1. Ele
2. Engineer
3. Necro (talking 1v1 here, not sitting miles off the point using marks like an idiot)
4. Thief
5. Ranger
6. Warrior
7. Mesmer
8. Guardian

I’d essentially agree with this list except I’d move Elementalist below Necro on the list. Elementalist is my most played class and the class does require that sheer technical skill of attunement switching to play adequately, which lends to a higher skill floor like Necro and Engineer.

I just feel that the way the attunement system was designed, its easy to fall into a rhythm given how your options are ultimately limited by the cooldowns on your swap. Engineer isn’t as inherently limited, thus lending to a higher skill cap.

The question whether a class is hard to play or not depends entirely on the situation that the player is presented in. Some people here say a certain class is easy clearly haven’t played those classes in certain situations. Like for example, seeing a line of conditions on my thief fills me with anxiety, versus my ele who basically LOLs all day long while nuking everyone in the area to death. A thief may be easier to get into given how the initiative system and certain weapon sets were designed(low skill floor), but playing on in a competitive setting against coordinated burst and good players will have your palms sweating as you fight for your life every second of the game. Initiative, while very newb friendly, also can allow great plays from good players if managed correctly.

How in the world are people putting Ranger as a tough class to play? All I see is auto attack and ability spam all day long. Sure they have a difficult time succeeding given their under powered state, but that doesn’t necessitate it having a ‘high skill’ cap.

Engineer, Elementalist, and Necromancer require more sheer technical skills but each class can have its specific difficulties given a situation or build faced.

Arheundel.6451:

condiments.8043:

A well played D/D elementalist is one of the toughest 1v1 classes in the game at the moment. They have so many control options as part of the weapon set they can load up on cantrips and be incredibly hard to lock down. So unless you’re very good at your class and have a build that can handle 1v1 situations, you will not beat a d/d ele.

The toughest classes for when I played my d/d ele were good trap rangers and condition necros who simply overload me with conditions. Of course that could all change if you use ether renewal as your heal. :P

I’d be careful in using terms like “toughest 1vs1 class” just to avoid unnecessary cries, a d/d ele is as tough as you make it be, we possess skills which punish the clueless spammers and make you viable against good players who will know your class.

A great player will be a tough opponent on any profession, a bad player will simply cry ‘OP’ on the forums

I don’t necessarily disagree, I’m just speaking from experience. I can handle 1v1, 1v2 situations with more confidence on my auramancer D/D ele than I have on other classes I’ve played. I actually felt kinda bad for some players as they tried helplessly to bring down my hp bar while I brought them down with sustained damage. Force them to burn their defensive abilities then execute them with a churning earth+teleport, which also works wonders in 1v2 if you can manage it.

Seriously, what game are you guys playing? Elementalist is one of the strongest professions in PvP at the moment with three viable weaponsets. The durable supportive staff builds, and the devastating area burst with sustain roamer D/D & S/D builds. D/D is also one of the strongest duelist sets in the game, with a host of control options and survive-ability.

What many of consider a liability(the attunement swapping), is most fun aspects of the class and differentiates it from all the other classes. Have you considered playing other classes if you don’t enjoy its integral mechanic?

There are certainly problems with the class. Some traitlines are weak(Earth&Fire), and quite a few of our grandmaster traits are subpar but most classes have to deal with this. I’d rather them focus on ranger right now bringing it up to speed.

A well played D/D elementalist is one of the toughest 1v1 classes in the game at the moment. They have so many control options as part of the weapon set they can load up on cantrips and be incredibly hard to lock down. So unless you’re very good at your class and have a build that can handle 1v1 situations, you will not beat a d/d ele.

The toughest classes for when I played my d/d ele were good trap rangers and condition necros who simply overload me with conditions. Of course that could all change if you use ether renewal as your heal. :P

Malicious.6742:

The second issue concerns ressing and stomping. Ressing a player that does not receive any dmg takes exactely as long as stomping him. This means that you basically can’t win a 1v2 against half capable players unless you kill them both at the same time or unless you can outdmg the heal. If it is a 1v3 it’s just ridiculous how fast a downed player is back on his feet.
Some people might argue “hey you’re not supposed to win a 1v2 or a 1v3 and it’s team pvp” but actually people “win” those handicap matches quite often or at least they would win if res wasn’t that strong. Down state interrupts/knock downs/stealth and kitten just makes it even harder. Long story short: ally res is way too strong while self res is way too underpowered.

Quick ideas how to fix this:
•reduce ally res-heal efficiency by 30%
•reduce ally res-heal efficiency by 50% and make self-heal uninterruptable (at least with normal hits)
•leave efficiencies and just reduce starting hp percentage while adding 50% to the total downed state hp to make up for the hp loss

Feel free to add ideas/thoughts about this. In case you disapprove and feel like the current state is fine please write down you arguments as well.

I agree with your ideas about the down state timers. It often can prevent you from re-entering if the enemy lets you bleed out which is enormously frustrating.

However for your second point, I think its rather delusion to balance a integral team mechanic like down state around highly unlikely situations assuming equally skilled players. You probably won’t be winning 1v3s under any circumstance assuming an opposition of skilled players, and 1v2’s are entirely possible if proper skills, builds and options are available(still highly unlikely). Current downed res heals are balanced where proper coordination allows for good comebacks, and allows the game to not be dominated by purely burst heavy teams.

While downed states have preventative measures they are often countered hard by boons like stability. Also, keep in mind when resing the player, the reser is in an extremely vulnerable position. They are incapable of any action and remain in a highly identifiable prostrate position helping their teammate. They often get interrupted by key skills, get bursted down themselves, or fail to get the res off due to incoming damage off-setting their healing output. It can suck sometimes in uncoordinated settings where smart players use the system to keep their teammates alive while your team frets about useless try to down players without helping teammates or getting the stomp.

If your build or someone in your team has not integrated a stomp preventative, or stomp measures I would reconsider your options.

Even with quite a few useless trait lines and utilities elementalists remain one of the most powerful classes at top play with three weapon sets being viable(staff,scepter/dagger,dagger/dagger).

The key I think for you guys is you need to:

A)Learn to attunement swap comfortably and reliably. Position keys so they will come naturally and quickly to you for swapping.
B)Find a good build. I see a lot of eles running around funky builds which probably leads to their ultimate frustration. Read up, and do some google/youtube/twitch.tv searching. There is good stuff out there.

Senjun.8149:

This is a pretty weak argument, i can dodge heartseeker and i do all the time, however dodging a spammable ability has its limits of usefulness if not to stall for time. You’re also assuming i have all of those abilities at my disposal, that in order to survive a thief attack id need to blow all over those strategically while a thief mashes almost nothing but 1 button.

I have seen thieves who choose not to spam heartseeker and i honestly applaud them and i do enjoy fighting them. It’s typically a fair, fun, dynamic fight. However whenever a thief attacks me and i see heartseeker is his ability of choice, than i lose 100% of the time. Even with help most of the times.

I don’t do much WvW, so damage might be more exacerbated than it is in the mists(I’m pretty sure it is), but I don’t lose to heartseeker spamming thieves on elementalist….EVER. Any thief who thinks they can get by just by spamming heartseeker is picked apart and eaten alive by good players in sPvP.

Firstly I recommend finding a good build. Staff is quite horrible in 1v1 engagements, whereas scepter/dagger & dagger/dagger are amongst the strongest in the game. I’m running 0/20/0/20/30 valkyrie scepter/dagger area burst build, and I can melt thieves in seconds I catch them. They can burst me down if I get caught in damage combo, but if I have cooldowns I can survive any burst they throw at me with the sustain I have.

Evie.2794:

to burst someone down ( unlike Warri or Thief) , and all AOE!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTyehv-2uEw

Errr….that burst is insane? I even noticed your Arcane blast was on cooldown in the midst of that damage….wow.

I like my S/D valkyrie burst build…but that looks pretty tempting.

Elementalists have some issues, but viability? We’re doing just fine in sPvP with the right build. Look up the right build and keep playing bro. Eles is fine and incredibly fun to play.

Otaur.9268:

On the other hand, I kind of wish I had a little more damage boost, as I am specced for Offense, I do die fairly quickly to other Offense specced professions who do about 8k – 12k in 1 or 2 hits. Very upsetting to know I have Low Hp, Low Armor, and Mediocre damage. My 4.5k Was a crit on a Burning target with Fire Grab, nothing compared to BWE2 where I could average almost 10 – 15k with Fire Grab crit on Burning target. Major nerf I guess they put in BWE3 as I did not play my ele BWE3, but played a Ranger instead.

Best of luck, also, remember to time dodge, use utilities if needed.
I also play D/D

If you want to go the big damage I would suggest Valkyrie S/D with 0/20/0/20/30 with arcane shield and blast with mist form. I’m pretty satisfied with the damage I do. While other classes like Warrior and Thief can do higher single target burst, ele AOE burst is pretty devastating.

As for 1v2, it all depends on the class composition and skills of your opponents. A lot of people slack or tunnel too much, leaving themselves open to counter burst once their cooldowns have been negated. They key for these types of battles is deciding your best strategy for the classes you’re facing. Facing burst classes is an uphill battle and you’ll be on the defensive until they run out of gas, but you can quickly down/kill them if they get too over-zealous.

Chakuna.6325:

I’m sorry to break this to you, but, The sky has already fallen. And it’s not the communities fault, it’s the developers.

Melodramatic bile. This game’s PvP isn’t in the best state currently, but there is still a long road ahead regardless of what the apocalyptic chanters repeat. There is nothing wrong with a lot of the criticism that goes around here as a lot of it is deserved, but to say the game is flat out DEAD at this point is rather short sighted.

This community stuff could be fun and breath life back into the sPvP scene. I’d be up for anything anyone tries.

Sebyos.4089:

You know what pisses me off ? During the beta devs were everywhere in the forums communicating a lot. It was amazing, a breath of fresh air in the MMO world ankittenpt telling everyone this company was different…

AND LOOK WHERE WE ARE NOW kitten MY CREDIBILITY RIGHT ?

I think they got hit hard by the reality of their release situation. They have a ton of work to do, probably don’t have the manpower to bring it up to speed. Just look at the language of their PvP blog post….

“Tip of the Iceberg”? As in, its going to be a while before this is in a competent state.
“We don’t make promises we’re not sure we can make.” While that is certainly a noble intention, I think its more reflective of their current situation. They aren’t sure when its coming out because they don’t have the time. They have a host of balance issues to address along with the broken infrastructure of the sPvP system itself.

I don’t want to sound all doom and gloom, but even IF the necessary features are implemented months down the line the sPvP community will probably be so gutted that it won’t matter. They will have very few new players to draw from due to the barrier to entry posed by the purchasing price, when viable alternatives like LoL and Dota2 are free. So realistically, we’re looking at maybe the release of the first expansion to drive interest in the PvP again. This is a pretty big failure for a feature that had generated so much interest in the game before its launch with a developer of such pedigree. Just another example of how bad design/infrastructure decisions can screw up a solid game.

So…its going to be a long haul guys. I really like the game, but I’m not sure if I’m going to last that long.

Kurow.6973:

It IS anti-burst.

C&D damage was drastically reduced.

Mug damage is fine as is. If Mug damage is reduced, a massive nerf on all other class’s class specific skills are required. If you can live with that and not qq, then sure…nerf Mug damage, but make sure to nerf all the other class’s class specific damage by the same amount, if not more.

The problem is the supposed anti-burst countermeasures hurt non-burst builds than the burst ones. After playing tonight I can tell you straight out that glassy D/D builds still have crazy burst. Shortbow, and D/D will still drop players in mere seconds if they don’t react instantly. The damage nerf wasn’t that bad to them.

Balanced x/D builds that use CnD as a reliable form of damage or shortbow for team fights? Ouchies, your damage took a hit. I was running S/D daze on my thief, and I’m not sure what to do now with the Daze nerf. I might stop playing my thief for my ele until more build options open up that aren’t so pigeonholed.

I mean backstab doesn’t get touched, but tactical strike does?! What in the world is going on?

Klinch.2964:

I’m really not seeing how backstab is so bad. I’ve played 80% of my games as a thief and I do just fine without the backstab build. Cluster bomb was way too strong, and with the nerf, it is still just fine.

Glass Cannon thieves front load easy ridiculous damage with how the backstab combo works right now. I can avoid a good portion of it on my thief given our mobility, but run any of the lighter armored classes with slightly less than tanky builds you’ll die in seconds just because you didn’t see the thief warp at you outside your field of vision.

The patch has addressed none of this, or actively made it worse for the class. You either stack damage and still do slightly less insane damage with cluster bomb/trick shot, and backstab combo or do less damage overall in a balanced build. I’m not seeing the logic.

I’m usually not one to complain, but the balance changes to Ranger and Thief….what happened?

Based on the various posts made by Anet I thought I had a general idea of how they wanted to bring things. I’m relatively unhappy with the current state of thief, where one dimensional glass cannon builds reign supreme or you spam bleed conditions with p/d. However, with the Anet post stating, “burst was being reduced, compensation in other areas” I figured they would start providing better options again. I was running sword/dagger daze build to help support my team in larger fight by helping lock down critical opponents. Damage was hardly ridiculous, and while the daze effect was powerful, there is ample opportunity on the part of the player to react with utilities, dodge, or call for backup. Compare that to the crazy front loaded easy damage from a glass cannon, and I’d say its a balanced build that rewards coordination. My ranger has been sitting the past few weeks because I’m just not having fun the with options available.

So…what happened with the patch? Dancing dagger needed to be nerfed because of the crazy bouncing damage(damage reduction is a tad high, but Im not that disappointed), and the cloak and dagger reduction is fair but….

Backstab? Untouched.
Shortbow? 15% damage reduction.
Mug+CnD precasting? Untouched.
Daze reduction for tactical strike with 10% damage boost(lol)? Uh.

Result? Everyone is still glass cannon thieves. With the daze reduction S/D thieves viability is put into question, and with the shortbow nerf, non glass cannon builds will be seeing much less range damage viability. With backstab not being nerfed Anet is practically screaming at us to go this direction.

After patch thieves:
-Glass cannon backstab thieves are still rampant, and still using the IWIN combo. They’ll be using less damage, but the entire class will doing less as a whole unless you spec conditions(Inc FOTM anyone?).
-Shortbow damage reduction. Probably necessary because of how much damage glass cannon thief cluster bombs can put out, but…what does it change? Thieves will still be using shortbow given how useful it is, guess what? They’ll be glass cannon so they get any damage out of it.

If anything this patch has dis-proportionally hurt non glass cannon and condition thieves far more that it did before. I don’t understand what they were shooting for in these changes.

Ranger? What can I say? Some nice bug fixes and a few slight buffs, but it won’t change the big picture.

So…status quo maintained I guess? Can someone explain this to me? I’ll give my thief some more play time, but if it doesn’t turn out well I’ll be switching to my elementalist for my permanent main.

Missed it because I was at work. Is there any place to view what was said?

I’ve actually had this happen multiple times against players who I’m either about to beat, or in the process of stomping. They soon rejoin the same game. Its pretty pathetic that some people can’t accept their own defeat.

Cool, I’ll have to check this out.

Arheundel.6451:

Give me a kittening break….the ele use 20 skills while you spamm the bow auto-attack for most part of the match and you expect to win?
I think what people have noticed is the 4k-6k hits on the ele and its struggle to survive and better performance in outlasting you, basically you’re crying about a guy who completely outclassed you on a profession which deal far less dmg than your own..

Well in actuality, staff is the elementalists worst 1v1 weapon by far. A well played dagger/dagger or scepter/dagger ele should stomp a thief build like this thoroughly if played correctly.