Guild Wars 2

I’ve cut my playtime way down lately personally, not many good teams queuing for team arena anymore, and solo arena just isn’t the same in terms of fun/challenge. More or less just waiting to see what the next balance patch brings, and if that brings back some more competition. For the health of the game, I certainly hope so.

Labor Day weekend + anniversary bash, they’re on vacation bro. Chill. Patch incoming soon.

Sol.4310:

The Ai problem will never leave, there no point giving a class skill if they are going to be useless. A better targeting system would be good, but by making it only target’s will effect the mesmer class when comes clones, going to be far to easy for us to follow the mesmer.

Your some what correct about what you said about a “warped meta” and it’s health. But this is how balance is found within almost every single online game, they design a build which counter players other builds.

Now put the Warrior in the Spirit Ranger’s spot, as they beating them atm. Do you nerf the Warrior or do you buff the Spirit Ranger. So now if you look at it from that point of view which class do you nerf and which class do you buff, cause if you nerf the Spirit Ranger wouldn’t that mean Warrior is now OP and they will have to nerf the Warrior then making it not as effective in a result other classes beating it meaning they repeat the same crap over and over, going by your idea of a better way to balance in fact is more unhealthy then adding in counter’s rather then trying to make every single build on par with each other.

About AI, they can still have it in the game, but just not be very viable at the top level. There’s still reason to have it in the game even if it’s not playable at the top end. Players that are more casual or newer to the game need builds to play that aren’t super complicated, but perform well enough at the entry level to get them into the game. There’s a lot of game design theory on the subject, but basically, you want to reward the new player more when they first start playing, because that gives them more interest in the game by making them feel a bit powerful from the get-go. At some later point, they may find out that this first build they learned won’t get them into the top echelons, but at least you attracted them to learn more and get far enough to learn that because they had an easier to play build to learn the game on. You just wean them off of it later and let them find out about the more competitive but harder to play specs that will deepen their understanding of the game at a time where their skill has caught up to the point where they can actually learn how to play it.

Concerning counter builds, there’s some more game design theory to bring in here. There are what are called “hard counters” and “soft counters”. Hard counter means we’re playing a game of rock-paper-scissors, where if your team has a Spirit Ranger (rock), and I’ve got a CC Warrior (paper), my paper is going to beat your rock 80%+ of the time (not going for an exact percentage here, just using this as an example). So, all I need to do is make sure my paper fights your rock a lot during the match, and your team will be at a severe disadvantage. This type of counter is also what we call “Build Wars”, where most of the match is decided before we even start playing based on what comp each team is running. This powerful of a level of countering is not fun to play, and not fun to watch.

What is more ideal is the idea of building “soft counters”. So, ideally, if you’re running a Spirit Ranger, and I’ve got a CC Warrior, maybe the chances of winning a duel are closer to 60%/40%. This way, sure, I’ve got your counter on my team, but it only gives my team a slight edge against you — there’s still plenty of room for skill and playstyle to make up for the natural disadvantage between our builds. In order to have a healthy game, you really want to minimize the amount of hard counters in the game and make it more about soft counters.

So lastly, the idea here about nerfing and buffing isn’t about going around in a circle nerfing things into oblivion till each class is the exact same and all are complete trash. The idea is about removing the outliers. If we think of all the builds being put on a line graph where the y-axis is “Power Level”, right now that graph is very spiky on the high side where it comes to Spirit Ranger, Necro, and S/D Thief, and very spiky on the low end when it comes to unplayed specs like Gadget Engi, Trap Thief, and Physical skill Warrior. We want to make that graph less spiky and more like a straight line (as much as humanly possible). Bring down the uber strong stuff, bring up the super lame weak stuff. Kapeesh?

Sol.4310:

Unlike you at least I post counter’s to the argument, on how you can improve your team’s game play. So it’s less stressful when you face teams running these so called Cheese build which turn’s out any build that beats someone is Cheese.

I never said that there are zero ways in the game to counter Spirit Ranger. Obviously there are ways to counterplay against the spec, and you named a few of them. But when a single spec is powerful enough to require teams to run a small number of precise builds to counter it, that’s what you called a warped metagame, where the entire game begins to revolve around being able to deal with this one overpowered thing. In games, when this happens, it’s not considered a particularly healthy thing, and should be fixed in order to have a more healthy and diverse meta.

The main complaint about the spec that I think you’re missing is the skill-to-power ratio. A spec that gives good results while not requiring much skill to get those good results is a major let down for competitive play. Competitive players want to feel that the game rewards their higher skill with better results, otherwise, why continue to practice and get better when others with less experience and skill can out-perform you with this other spec anyway? It’s fine to have these passive, high AI specs, they just shouldn’t be able to compete with higher skill cap builds in the competitive scene. That’s the major thing turning competitive players away from the game at an alarming rate, and that’s the reason that this issue is so important for a lot of people.

Right, Spirit Weapons are more for a roamer build. Best in small fights and by no means should be used in a bunker spec.

Spirit Weapons are ok in pvp, you just need my super secret Mighty Spirits build to make it work.. They recently buffed their damage quite a bit, they do die to heavy cleave but remember, most of the time utilities don’t do much damage, so having them live a long time is kinda gravy.

Sol.4310:

Truth hurts doesn’t it you nice guy. I’ll let you fill in the blank’s.

Your prob one of them morons basing there fact’s off Solo Que, them arena’s will never be balance ever.

Now team que, may not be balanced but all the QQ about spirit ranger’s cracks me up, simple minded kittentards have no idea.

So, this time your argument is that you agree that it’s definitely not balanced for solo arena, and it may not be balanced for team arena, but people are complaining too much about how it’s not balanced. I see.

Aeroxe.8140:

Actually, Mini Ken is a good guardian and plays tpvp quite often. I never see you around though.

Aw, thanks Aeroxe! I played against Sol once just a night or two ago in team arena, he just doesn’t remember I guess.

Sol.4310:

Guys, let’s face facts here. Spirit Ranger’s really not that great, stop complaining to Anet. L2p.

Signed,
Spirit Ranger

Well put.

Wombat.3510:

Unless the spirits are killed, then it is undeniably the most underpowered class in the game and completely useless in tpvp.

Sure, tell you what. You spend your time focusing down some spirits, I’ll spend my time focusing down you. I’m willing to bet whatever spec you’re running is pretty underpowered when you’re in downstate. :P

Eurantien.4632:

Imagine how OP MM necro would be if the necro had access to ranger weapons. This is something i’ve said many times. Evade spam on ranger needs to be nerfed. Not their specs.

A valid argument, Eura, and I basically agree. It’s the damage-to-TTK ratio that is out of balance. Either lowering the damage by reducing the burn procs, or reducing their sustain by lowering the evades, would bring the spec more in line with others.

dreztina.4820:

I don’t think you tpvpers understand how much damage you would do to the already limited pvp scene if you removed hotjoin. If people wanted to play tpvp, they would. But they don’t. That’s why the vast majority of spvpers spend most of the time in hotjoins.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Basically because of this. tPvP has a miniscule playerbase. I feel it has the potential to be revived from the ashes of last September, but that’s a long shot at best.

Also understand that 98% of the playerbase is strictly casual—and when I say casual, I mean the kind that you (as a r61 guardian) could win 1v3 fights against regularly. So I think it’s wise for Anet to leave a bad game mode in place, although I think things would have been better if they had never put it in in the first place. However, hotjoins are so bad that players actually looking for PvP are sorely disappointed when they head to the mists for the first time, which is why I think it would be smart to make an actual match the “standard” PvP mode.

Honestly, there’s not a huge difference between hotjoin and unrated queue, though. Here are the major differences in a nutshell:

• Unrated Queue is enforced 5v5, outside of disconnects and afks you are guaranteed a match where numbers are equal on both sides
• Queued matchmaking attempts to (though it’s not perfect) put two teams against each other that are roughly equal in skill
• Queued matches encourage map control and team cooperation, not zerging

Hotjoin was a terrible idea from the start, and many people were turned away from pvp simply because they tried hotjoin and thought that’s what pvp was in this game and never got to see wht it’s really like. If you want to play casually, that’s fine, and is exactly what unrated play is meant for in other games, and should be what it’s meant for in this game. Play just about any other competitive game and there is a casual/unrated mode for just this purpose. There is no need for hotjoin.

Wombat.3510:

In reality it’s is no more OP than steath, necro minions, mesmer phantasms, 100 blades, eng or ele skill spamming.

Right, and that’s why there are basically NO top teams running MM necro, phant mesmer, 100b warrior, or eles. Let’s get real here and face the hard facts, Spirit Ranger is overpowered. It can 1v1 well, it can teamfight well, and provides the team with one of the strongest res utils in the game. [SYNC] ran two of them and did incredibly well, and of course they’re very skilled players, but even not so skilled players can pick it up and top 500 the solo queue leaderboards pretty easily. It. Is. Overpowered. And does much more damage than it should compared to its TTK. So let’s not be diplomatic here and get the spec fixed, mmk?

NevirSayDie.6235:

As much as I dislike hotjoin, I understand that Anet wants to keep it around in some format. I’d love to see it changed to “practice” or “custom” or something, though.

Ok, I see this viewpoint a lot, but my argument is, why? Custom Arenas can stay, like I said — perfectly reasonable for guilds or teams to set up scrims or duels or whathaveyou. But look at other games, like MOBAs for instance. Every way to play the game (aside from practicing against computer players) you have to queue and play a full match. It’s not unreasonable to expect a 15 minute max time commitment from someone if they want to PvP, there doesn’t necessarily NEED to be this game mode where you can come and go as you please and nobody cares about the team winning. If you want to PvP in a team game, you have to commit to a full match where you play on a team. I don’t see anything unreasonable there, and to leave hotjoin as the standard way for new players to play the game is troublesome because you really don’t experience PvP as it’s meant to be played and learn bad habits that will come back to hurt you once you try Solo/Team Arena.

Honestly, now that custom arenas exist, they just need to get rid of hotjoin entirely and add unrated queue. Hotjoin is a terrible first experience for new spvp players that doesn’t teach you how to properly play Conquest, and with how teams are stacked its worse than a freshman frat initiation to spvp. It’s like, welcome to pvp, heres a kick in the nuts to get you started! Just have unrated queue for people to learn how to play or to try new builds, and lose the hotzerg.

lynnhood.8270:

I really like your synthesis cymerdown…

Ok, to be clear, what I was referring to are the high-end team matches, the type that spectators will be watching. I float around top 50 team arena lb and, depending on the enemy team, team fights that go on for over 2 minutes are rather common with the level of res coordination and number of res utils seen at this tier of play. These long, back and forth fights can be fun for experienced players to watch, but really, really hard for the common spectator to follow and even experienced commentators like Grouch can have trouble processing all the plays in these long 4v4s. Compared to MOBAs whose team rights typically last 10 or 15 seconds, GW2s team fights in the current meta are sometimes an endurance test for the viewer and commentator rather than being “quick plays” that are more exciting and visually appealing. And like I said, I believe a big part of that is there are too many viable res utils currently and they should be nerfed a little bit.

Wait, 4 Guardians lost on Skyhammer? Rut roh raggy.. :P

I should have screenshotted my team arena game where it matched my #ESPAHTS team versus rabbits and deer Not enough people team qing these days, sad times.

I see. Well, in my opinion a lot of people tend to misunderstand what a bunker really is. Some people envision a guy who just stands on the same point all game and never leaves it, like an immobile, unmovable rock, but that’s not really how they’re played most of the time. All it really means is a defensively specced character, typically wearing Cleric or Shaman amulet, that is capable of standing on the point during team fights and holding the cap for the team. It doesn’t mean you never rotate; in fact you should be getting into the team fight as much as possible wherever on the map that it happens since that’s where a Guardian is strongest. As a Guardian, it’s not really a matter of needing to choose whether to bunker or to support. You can and should do either or both at once, as the situation warrants. The ability to give boons and cleanses to the team while tanking damage and holding the cap during the fight is what makes Guardian so powerful.

About Hallowed Ground, it can definitely be good against CC Warrior, but I think I’d only run it against 2 or more of them. Just 1 can be mitigated well enough by timing Stand Your Ground properly, that’s usually enough time for my squishies to peel out and get some distance.

It’s cool to roll your own spec, though, and I wish you the best of luck. Glad to discuss the finer points with you.

• Save Yourselves over Hold the Line: Hold the Line is a generally the stronger shout because a) the cooldown is much shorter, b) AoE Protection and Regen are much better for teamfight than a bunch of boons only on yourself, and c) you’re looking to cleanse almost ALL condis AoE with Pure of Voice + Absolute Resolution, so the effect of cleansing 2 AoE and then stacking the rest on yourself isn’t really needed very often.
• Hallowed Ground: With the build I gave, there are about 4 reasonable choices for what to put in the place that Sanctuary occupies, and I swap between them depending on the enemy team comp (put here in order from most- to least-used): a) Sanctuary — Amazing against teams with no Guardian, or teams with a lot of projectile attacks like Engi, Ranger, Thief. b) Merciful Intervention — Just recently became viable, heals for more over time than Sanctuary and gives you extra mobility to teleport into a teamfight and such, great for if you expect the other team to play a 3-point strat where you’ll need to rotate a lot. c) Save Yourselves — If you need the extra cleanse or the extra stunbreaker (for instance against CC warrior). d) Hallowed Ground — If you’re doing cannon on Skyhammer, or if you have a really coordinated burst team that includes a Mesmer with Time Warp. Also, keep in mind that Hallowed Ground is hard countered by Well of Corruption.
• Tome of Courage over Renewed Focus: A reasonable option, especially at the lower and middle tiers of play. The reasons that most people don’t generally use Tome in top level play are because a) You can’t stomp, res, or give Stability while in book, which are some of your key roles. b) It offers you less survivability than Renewed Focus in 1v2 and 1v3. c) Most teams run some kind of boon removal, especially now with so many condi Necros and boon stealing Thieves, so book 5 can still be rather easily interrupted even with Hallowed Ground or Stand Your Ground.

So, I’m also a Staff + Mace bunker Guardian, but I use those weapons with Shield in the mainstream 0/0/10/30/30 build that you can find here: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7Z-Bx;0NF-40B3RG-90;9;69TT;44;014A589U-k67;1ZF18ZF183RS

I’m going to say that your build is very similar to that build, but a less optimized version of it. I’ll go over the major differences between the build you’ve given and the mainstream build, and reasons as to why the mainstream build is to be generally preferred in top level play:

• Signet of Resolve over Shelter: So, there’s a few problems with using the signet heal in a bunker build over Shelter. First, it heals for too much. What I mean by that is it heals for over half your health with cleric/cleric, so in order to get the full use out of the heal, you have to let yourself get down to around 7k health, which is just a bit too risky when you’re facing teams with coordinated burst (a single scepter air burst or a basi + backstab + heartseeker gets ya). Also, the signet heal is more telegraphed and requires Stability to ensure that it goes through without being interrupted (focus 5 also helps here, I admit), and you can’t always afford to be using your Stability so frivolously. Another thing is that Shelter is better at helping you survive focus fire, and in reality “heals” for more than it looks like it does in the form of its 2s block duration. There are a few corner cases where Shelter can be annoying (unblockable attacks like Corrupt Boon and Spectral Wall, Ring/Line of Warding to name the most troublesome ones), but for the most part, Shelter is the tried and tested heal for bunker Guardian for a very good reason.
• 10 points taken out of Virtues and put into Radiance: So, first of all, the passives you’re getting in Radiance are much worse than what you get from Virtues, since you’re running Shouts and Staff + Mace, you’re dumping out tons of boons and dropping that boon duration and virtue recharge rate is a considerable sacrifice in order to pick up some condition damage and crit rate. The big deal here, though, is losing out on taking Indomitable Courage (X in Virtues). With Renewed Focus, that’s 2 extra AoE Stabilities that you won’t have access to in teamfights, and each of those often equate to a stomp or a res that you will have much more trouble getting against good players with stuns/knockbacks ready. Losing the very powerful Indomitable Courage isn’t worth it just to buff the 2nd best heal option you have for the build.
• Writ of the Merciful instead of Resolute Healer: This one’s a bit more debatable, especially after the recent buff to symbol size for the Staff and Mace. I tried Writ out more myself when I was lesser experienced. In theory, Writ of the Merciful sounds pretty good on paper, giving your symbols that extra bit of sustain for your group. In practice, though, it’s mostly just sustain for yourself, since you’re typically the only person that stands in your own symbols for any length of time. The amount of extra healing effect your symbols give with this trait (a little over 200/s) pales in comparison to the amount of extra damage your DPS will take by standing together inside that circle in order to get it. DPS want to be constantly running, kiting, and dodging to deal and avoid damage, not standing inside a little circle bunched up together to get AoEd. On the other hand, Resolute Healer is arguably the most powerful res trait in the game. It’s just silly the kinds of resses you are able to get off sometimes with it. Even if sometimes the knockback aspect of it is useless because the other team already has Stability, the projectile absorption aspect of it is still great at protecting you, the body, and your other teammates that are ressing from ranged cleave damage, which sometimes makes all the difference between getting that res or not.
• Focus over Shield: Focus is mainly a DPS offhand, whereas Shield is intended for bunkering. Giving several seconds of Protection (the 2nd most powerful boon in the game) in a cone AoE is very strong for teamfight, and the Shield of Absorption grants up to 4 seconds of projectile absorption, a nice little knockback for interrupts or contesting points, and pops for about a 1.5k heal AoE. When compared to what Focus 4 and 5 give you, it’s really not that close.

Just wanted to contribute my own thoughts here. This type of thread has come up many times before, and I think for the most part, a majority can agree on a few points:

• Downstate, like it or not, is something integral to Guild Wars 2, and something too tightly woven into the game at this point to ever be removed completely
• The existence of downstate adds a unique teamplay mechanic to pvp not seen in other games and especially rewards teams with good downstate management and communication
• There are currently too many tournament-viable res utilities to manipulate downstate which can make team fights go on too long and make them too confusing to watch

Two things to “save downstate” and make it a better pvp mechanic:

1. Reduce the efficacy of certain res utilities (Elixir R should have its stun break returned but the res effect should tick for less, Spirit of Nature is a bit too powerful/tanky esp. in smaller fights)
2. As previously mentioned, add a “rally sickness” effect to reduce the strength of allies that are rallied multiple times per fight. Implementation particulars can be argued, but here’s an example: [Weariness] You are weary from recently being downed. Your stats are all decreased by 10% per stack of Weariness. You lose 1 stack of Weariness every 20 seconds in combat, every 3 seconds out of combat, and all stacks when defeated. Stacks up to a maximum of 5 times. (this is not a condition, just an effect that appears on your bar when you rally that cannot be cleansed or stripped). The intended effect here is to retain much of the importance of downstate and teamplay in stomps/resses, but to make sure that teams are eventually “attritioned out” after a long fight with several rallies. No more of these never ending teamfights, we want to see blood!

I agree with a lot of your points, and hopefully this thread will grow and become more noticed by the devs. Another few points you didn’t address.

• Bugs! There are still SO many bugs that exist with all 8 classes a year into the game, and some of these bugs are part of the class balance issues. If you go and look on the wiki you can see most of them, I really don’t know why more of these aren’t being addressed over more minor things like tooltip mistakes.
• Passive builds are currently too strong. Builds relying on AI are currently too rewarding for the level of skill required, and just shouldn’t be good enough to be viable in top level play. AI-based builds aren’t very fun to watch, make targeting frustrating, and just add to the cluttered mayhem of team fights for spectators.

Evan Lesh.3295:

I agree there should be an option! Unfortunately players who go back to the old map will not have a great middle ground between the old a newly added functionality. In any case, it was wrong of us to not leave an option many people have gotten used to.

Public test server!

Eyia Hellhide.7320:

So hello from a new PvPer. I started to play GW2 2 months ago and then 10 days ago I decided to see what PvP is and I fall in love. Last 10 days this is all I do in the game and I’m afraid I’m addicted. I’ve played 220 games so far and I’m rank 13. I really enjoy PvP but it was impossible not to notice some things that are wrong and when I see something wrong I can’t be silent. This is the most competitive part of the game and you can’t really compete if you’re not offered equal chances to win.

Welcome to sPvP! I’m glad you’ve decided to try it out, and I agree that it’s a lot of fun, especially if you stick out the early learning phase and get to experience the more competitive aspects of the game, where you feel you can hang with the best and push yourself to the limits!

Eyia Hellhide.7320:

1. Balance

Hotjoin is designed to be the most casual mode of play, with people being able to join and leave at any time. By nature, it means that odd numbers of players are allowed, and that you may not have a very balanced team. That is just a flaw of the game mode, and something that you should come to expect, unfortunately.

Eyia Hellhide.7320:

2.Targeting system

In Options, uncheck an option called something like, “Right-Click To Interact”. Now, Right-Click will only move the camera, use Left-Click to target.

Eyia Hellhide.7320:

3. The minimap

Yeah, the minimap is bugged at the moment, it doesn’t show all of your teammates. Also, I think up is always North now.

Eyia Hellhide.7320:

4. Working for the team is not awarded

Yes, I agree that the rewards in hotjoin are badly skewed towards the kill/death ratio and have too little to do with defending, supporting, or assaulting objectives. I’d really like to see a system more like the one that SWTOR had, with rewarding tiers of medals based on damage dealt, kills, healing allies, and defending and attacking objectives, among other things. As it is, hotjoin is badly plagued by glory farming, encourages zerging, and almost nobody cares about winning or losing the match, which sets you up badly for Solo and Team Arena. In the meantime, to keep your sanity, don’t worry too much about winning or losing matches till you get to Solo or Team Arena, you will only get yourself frustrated. Just worry about practicing your class and doing your best individually in hotjoin.

Eyia Hellhide.7320:

5. The community

I find that the PvP community is much like other communities – you have some really stand up, nice folks, and some really rude ones, and everything in between. PvP attracts some very egocentric, in-your-face types that other game modes don’t, though. What I can say is that as you get into the upper tiers of play, you find more self-confident players with less need to assert their dominance because they are in full knowledge of their ability and the abilities of others at their tier of play. Try not to worry too much about the ragers in the lower tiers, you’ll find them everywhere and it’s best to pay them no mind. Keep looking for the nicer, more helpful players, because they’re definitely out there and you’ll enjoy the game a lot more in their company.

You’re definitely not alone with your sentiments, best of luck to you and your team in whatever you end up doing! Smite is pretty fun btw if you haven’t tried it out yet.

Jax.5261:

stunningstyles.7054:

I run soldier/berserker amulet in tpvp…stomping isn’t an issue

Then you lose a lot of crit chance, which means while playing staff you lose a lot of dps (due to the lack of crits, other weapons will not lose as much) you also run lyssa runes instead of solider runes which means you don’t have no where near enough condi clearing support for your team. You’re also missing the 3 condi clears from Resolve and the Stability from Courage and massive heals from regeneration that you wouldn’t really pay attention to.

There’s always a trade off and it’s pretty massive when you drop a bunker guard for a dps guard.
Not to mention you don’t have any control skills to gain a point in the first place (no hammer) and your build is hardly DPS without crit chance. I don’t know if you’ve ever played a bunker before but if you’re good at it you’ll realise why a DPS build can’t fill it’s shoes, it’s a completely different role.

Actually, he is taking Absolute Resolution in his build. Anyway, I think we’re both beating a dead horse here with the dps vs bunker argument, we’ve covered all the major points pretty well. In closing, I play both bunker and dps guard in solo queue, and I like to think I can play them both at a pretty reasonable level of skill. Each have their strengths, but in high level team play, I think a whole year’s worth of top level teams choosing their team comps carefully speaks for itself. It’s not as if all those teams are unaware that dps guard builds exist or something,

If so, you should name your new team, “Stab’s Up Bear Stomping [SUBS]”.

Yo dawg, I herd u liek pvp, so I put some pvp on the tv so u can watch pvp while u pvp.

Bear is an excellent player, and one of the first high level Guardian players that I had the pleasure of playing against while I was coming up in the ranks. I remember being frustrated as to how fast his stomps/resses were and how to beat his Sanctuary placement. Watched back his stream later and learned a lot. Get this dude a group already!

Huge thumbs up, great contribution to the community! I hope more people continue to notice the channel going forward and get to see how much fun gw2 pvp can be.

stunningstyles.7054:

the more dps u can get while still being able to do your job as a bunker and condi clearer the better

For every gain, there’s a loss. You’re gaining some dps, and losing some condi clear and some healing power and some stability and some boon duration. You don’t just get dps for free.

Go to Options and uncheck an option that I think is called something like, “Enable Right-Click to Interact”. Something like that, it’s an option recently added in the last 2 months or so. Just keep in mind that you will have to left-click or tab to target now.

You should go on Anvil Rock and ask there in Heart of the Mists map chat. I’m sure someone will pick you up.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

aleks best english grammar NA

On topic: Duels are not a priority when we got all this other kitten we need first: Rewards/Polish/Balance/Matchmaking/Templates/Targetting

Agree, though sometime after that I would love to have it

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Couldn’t have said it better.

Lopez.7369:

ArenaNet said you can leave up to five matches every 72 hours. The developers also admitted Skyhammer is terrible for competitive play. Putting these two together, it makes sense for people to protest the map by not playing.

Here’s the thread for the protest, by the way: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Protest-Skyhammer-in-solo-queue/.

Don’t do this. It’s against the ToS, and you may have your account banned.

Lopez.7369:

Nope. A lot of people are protesting it in this way: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Protest-Skyhammer-in-solo-queue/.

Yeah, don’t do this. It’s against the Terms of Service Agreement and you may be banned.

Yes, the new minimap is bugged in that it doesn’t always show all of your teammates on the map. Please fix ASAP.

1. Class balance – this needs to be top priority, good players are leaving or taking a break from the game in droves because of the current balance issues
2. Matchmaking – especially in solo queue, a good majority of games aren’t close because of lopsided teams, which makes a lot of players very frustrated
3. Rebalancing of Spirit Watch and Skyhammer so they are ready for competitive play

Bump, same issue.

Cool to see the responses! We know all of these utils are really strong, but its always interesting to try to weigh them in our minds on an “absolute” scale. And yes, Shave Your Shelves, indeed!

Cool videos! Here’s a few ideas off the top of my head:

• Plays of the Week – A highlight reel where you break down a few of your captured moments while WvWing. You could show each highlight twice, once in full motion with game sound, and then a second time in slow motion as you give voice-over commentary as to what you were doing and why the play you made was clutch/interesting.
• How To Win – A weekly highlight of a particularly close/interesting fight, where you break down using stops or slow motion how you were able to react to the enemy and pull out a tough win in the fight.
• Roaming With Chris – A weekly hour stream (if you are into streaming) where you do some WvW and roam (with or without buddies) and you answer viewer questions on stream. If you post it on YouTube, it’s great if you put the twitch chat box as part of the video so people watching the vod can see what questions were asked.

That’s cool, and it’s good you’re contributing that to the community. Few enough Guardians around doing that these days as it is. Hats off to you for that.

Also, much respect for the measured responses. I enjoy a good debate and the civility wasn’t missed, pretty rare to find on forums in my experience.

Yeah, I saw that in your video. I don’t question the viability for group play assuming you swap weaps as you recommend, I just question the viability for accomplishing much solo efficiently, aside from being able to kill upleveled without dying fast when a group arrives.

One thing I will say about the build, though, is that it gives you a lot of room for error/comfort. If you’re the type that really doesn’t like to die, this offers you a really low-risk option to roam about without much fear of dying before you get a chance to react or call for help.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

The only thing that was wrong with the post was assuming that one can’t win fights or stand one’s ground against competent players (or groups of them) with the build, at least to enough of an extent to be productive via delaying reinforcements, delaying caps of or all-together saving camps, or something as simple as saving some allied pugs.

Well, I didn’t say that. I just said it will be hard to kill competent players 1v1 with it (as in, if they end up eating too much damage off your retal and such, they will be able to back out and you don’t have the spike or mobility to prevent that). Bunkering and supporting you can do, but arguably better with different weapons.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

All of these skills provide some kind of unique benefit that a team has to consciously make up for if they don’t have someone in their lineup carrying the skill. I suppose the Engie kits are kind of a cop-out because it is 6 skills in one, but all of the others are either completely unavailable to other professions, require an elite for similar effect or require skilled execution to make up for. In going through this exercise it kind of exposes why Mesmer is in its current state. The utility of Portal and IoL served as crutches for a long time, and now that Spirit of Nature has become the replacement for IoL people can live without Portal. Mesmers struggled against condi-cleave comps before the June patch, and now that there are more conditions and other ways to get their utility there isn’t really a good reason to try to carry one.

Well, I think Mesmer is still very good in a burst DPS comp, they just have a very hard time with conditions, which this meta is full of. Once burst comps become more viable again, I think Mesmer will make a comeback. Right now, Rangers are taking their spot as you say due to the strength of their top spec and it’s synergy with the other condi specs.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Clones ftw! Don’t think outside of the box! Never ever do that…… ever!

/sarcasm off

Nothing wrong with being independent and coming up with your builds, and nothing wrong with posting them on the Internet for people to look at and use for themselves if they like. But there’s also nothing wrong with people posting their own opinions on said builds, as long as they’re being constructive about it instead of just trying to troll.

Yeah, I guess Sun Spirit does deserve to be in the top 10 somewhere, dem burns. Think I’ll update my list.

This is a fun discussion that I’ve had on TS a few times that I thought I would bring to the forums. Rank the top 10 most powerful (including its effect, casting time, and cooldown) utilities in the game for Team Arena across all classes. Keep in mind, I’m not referring to heals or elites, just the 7 8 and 9 skills. Also, they dont necessarily have to be “genericly” powerful, just powerful in a particular build, and thus may be traited to be better than it is by default. Lastly, everyone has their own opinions, so if you dont like my list, make your own and share! Here’s my list:

1. “Stand Your Ground!” – Guardian
2. Illusion of Life – Mesmer
3. Portal – Mesmer
4. Shadow Trap – Thief
5. Epidemic – Necromancer
6. Grenade Kit – Engineer
7. Shadow Refuge – Thief
8. Elixir R – Engineer
9. Sun Spirit – Ranger
10. Berserker’s Stance – Warrior

Adam.6047:

Clear lack of understanding of guardian mechanics here.

-Absolute Resolution – Activating Virtue of Resolve removes three conditions. Virtue of Resolve’s passive effect is stronger.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Virtue_of_Resolve

Skip to 2:55 on the video and watch as he shows that you remove 3 condis from your team with virtue of resolve active. Oh wait it didn’t, yes he condi cleansed by that using save yourself and contemplation of purity. The team condi cleanse had absolutely nothing to do with him activating virtue of resolve.

Maybe you’re just trolling, but I’ll bite I suppose.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Absolute_Resolution

“The active effect removes three conditions from you and allies in the area.”

And did you really have to name your picture “stunningscrub.png” when you didn’t even take the time to click the link on the page you linked? If you played bunker Guard, or just any Guard build using that trait, you’d already know it removes condis AoE.

stunningstyles.7054:

The way gw2 game mechanics work and guardian traits (aka dodges, blinds, aegis) I have plenty of bunker by being mechanically sound and dodging CC and damage. That why I feel having more dps is better. People feel u needa bunker in 5v5 comp but if your good enough to avoid damage in high congestion fights its fine to be dps guard.

Well, first of all, I think you use Soldier/Zerk ammy if I’m not mistaken, and I believe Energy sigils (sorry if I’m mistaken here, I’m going from memory of when I looked at your video a while ago) so you’re a bit more of a bunker than a dps in that your damage is ok but you’re more about tanky and less about bursty, as far as your equipment goes (as well as your trait point allocation). So yeah, you’re sort of a bunker already except that you wield a Greatsword and equip Zerk jewel; calling yourself a “DPS Guard” isn’t quite 100% accurate if that’s how you’re built, since you do some damage but much lower than a zerked out player.

But my main point is, let’s say you were zerked out and playing a true DPS Guard setup. You say you can mitigate a bunch of damage by dodging and otherwise not playing bad, and of course that’s true, but the same could be said of a bunker build. The big difference is the amount of pressure you can handle, amount of time you can hold out 1vX, and the amount of team support you’re able to give. A bunker can stand on point for long periods of time 1vX or in a team fight, and that’s a big deal because if you have to give up the neut while you’re fighting, that’s a lot of points lost, and this is Conquest mode after all. The more your team is able to hold a capture while fighting, the more points your team gets in the end, especially when you consider how a lot of teams have between 2 and 4 team res utilities, making fights go super long. Imagine a team fight lasting 60 seconds, that’s 30 points you would have lost if the point is neutral that whole time. Another big thing is stomps and resses. All the dodge rolls and other damage avoidance measures in the world don’t enable you to facetank cleave damage while you get off that all-important stomp or res that wins or loses the fight, and sometimes being able to provide more damage is less important than being able to just win the fight with a stability-covered stomp/res. Speaking of stability, that’s another thing you’re losing out on compared to a bunker, since the typical build runs Indomitable Courage (X in Virtues). That’s two more aoe stabs per teamfight that you don’t have, and sometimes those are really key.

So yeah, what I’m trying to say is that the build offers one set of tools, and Bunker Guard offers another. I won’t say one is better than the other, they just have pros and cons, that’s all. The way I think about it, you’re a lot like a Warrior. You just have more boon and cleanse support, more AoE damage but much less single target damage, and you have the same weakness in that you have to be in melee range to do most of your damage, so you can be kited with cripple/chill/immob once your cleanses are burned. Other than that, the two are pretty similar if you think about it, and you’d never say Warrior > Bunker Guard because they’re two totally different roles.

rchu.8945:

while I share the same sentiment about this build, but it’s been around for a while and based on OP’s videos and his loyal following, it seems to work for them. I tried it for few weeks (earlier in the year) but didnt quite get it, so I went back to AH build. But I mostly blame that on myself.

Just out of curiosity, what’s your build?

I advocate 0/5/30/30/5 with a mix of zerker and knight with Staff + GS for solo and small group play (GS + Mace/Focus is also viable but you have to run Retreat instead of SY! in that case), and you can make that tankier (swapping out the zerker part for soldier) for zergs. If you like support, going 0/0/10/30/30 and mostly cleric with a touch of knight for vigor procs with Staff + Mace/Shield is also fun, tons of heals and cleanses for your friends.

Anyway, nothing against the OP and anyone that enjoys the build, I just personally don’t agree with it, but whatever works and is fun for people, that’s cool of course.