Guild Wars 2

This action does not give me hope. BP seems entirely nonexistant, and DR is running a decent zerg, but doesn’t seem to have anyone interested in doing anything but. Hopefully this isn’t indicative of the matchup as a whole.

Finally back. Out of practice and tired as hell, but maybe I can have some fun tonight.

Ninein.4782:

dreztina.4820:

wads.5730:

no one’s saying they dont welcome relatively small but organized and skilled guilds.

I am. Every decent guild that transfers to Mag is one less guild to fight. First SM and now WaR. If too many of the good guilds transfer to Mag, the action is going to suck. Will have to transfer to another server in the tier just to fight them again.

This would be a problem if all we did was stay in this tier but when we’re outnumbered in other tiers, these skilled players would come in handy.

Also got a chance to run around with War’s group in EB last night and was impressed with their siege placement and teamwork during assaults.

That’s great for people who care about the server winning, but doesn’t do much for those of us who just want good fights.

Spvpers really overestimate their skill lol. Can a spvper go into wvw and stomp bads? Sure, just like I can go into hotjoin and stomp the bads there. That’s how I learned to play the game, infact. Didn’t switch to wvw until I was bored of consistently getting top scores in hotjoins. But I don’t say tpvpers are bad just because hotjoins are often lower skilled, and spvpers shouldn’t say all wvwers are bad just because the zergers are.

I ran into a thief a little while back while roaming around in wvw. Tiger finisher buff with champion slayer title on. 3-0ed him without even having to try. The guy was awful. I constantly run into thieves in wvw that are 10x as good as that guy. There are some of us who do competitive pvp in wvw zones, and if you spvpers run into us some time, you may be surprised.

wads.5730:

no one’s saying they dont welcome relatively small but organized and skilled guilds.

I am. Every decent guild that transfers to Mag is one less guild to fight. First SM and now WaR. If too many of the good guilds transfer to Mag, the action is going to suck. Will have to transfer to another server in the tier just to fight them again.

Was that WaR or WäR? From all the talk in the last thread I was hoping to fight WäR when I get back, would be disappointing if they’re on Mag now.

Oozo.7856:

dreztina.4820:

That’s a shame. I hope they go back to their own servers soon.

Actually, it could be a good thing and get Mag back up a teir quicker than it would have otherwise happened.

Mixed feelings about that. I could go a lifetime without being matched up with YB again. God I hate that server.

That’s a shame. I hope they go back to their own servers soon.

Did Maguuma really get a bunch of transfers?

Let me guess, you were playing an elementalist?

I was having internet issues a while back and dc’ed during fights fairly regularly. Not fun compounding the frustration of a dc with repair costs. :|

That was really good. I’m sure you’re going to have a lot of people write off the video because of your build, but you played pretty much flawlessly, both in terms of mechanics and mindgaming your opponents. I love fighting warriors with my ele. On paper it’s an easy fight, but in reality, as you showed, a minor mistake can get you 100-0ed. Good warriors give me some of the most intense, closest fights. If I ever end up on tier3, I’ll look for you. :p

I don’t know if this skill has ever worked for me. I use it and I see my animation, but it never seems to actually cast anything. I don’t see any kind of attack and never see any damage. Not sure if it’s just not easy to see or what, but I’ve never had any luck with it.

This is pretty cool. I wonder if you guys would be willing to extend this post to the wvw forums? I know some of you do both, and even if all you do is spvp, class knowledge and matchups is fairly universal, even if strategy isn’t.

The problem with balance discussions is that most of you have never even seen anyone play a class near maximum potential, and you certainly don’t play any at that level yourself.

So what is there to discuss? Maybe at your skill level, certain classes are overpowered. Maybe at a higher skill level, the class you think is op is actually balanced, and a class you think is balanced or weak is actually op. It’s the classic problem of Tryndamere or Master Yi from League, except without the systems in place to separate players based on skill.

There’s really no point to these discussions because there’s no way to convince someone that the class that constantly destroys them is weak or that the class they destroy is overpowered. Just a bunch of dick swinging.

Etna.1634:

dreztina.4820:

Been reading this thread a bit. It seemed like a pretty terrible sounding matchup at first, but then it started picking up. Maybe it’s not so bad afterall. It’s not changing next week, right?

There should be a way to be able to hug all your enemies… No enemies is such a strong word… There should be a way to be able to hug your fellow players altho they play on different servers. Actually we should all do hugs, not war and strong words that builds competition and adversary. I don’t like it when people say bad things to eachother.

or

One time this guy that had a red name and played on another server invited me to a party and started talking to me!?!? How is that possible? I felt so, I don’t know what I felt but it was not a good feeling. If someone on another server that I am competing against can talk to me he might say bad things to me, that shouldn’t be allowed. I take these kind of bugs personally cause altho I’m anonymous on the internet and so is that guy and probabaly live half way around the world this really hurts my feelings. I don’t like having to talk to people I don’t want to talk to. Sure I could’ve declined the group invitation but still the option just shouldn’t be there, I feel unprotected and alittle afraid!!!

Thread has been “fixed” back to uninteresting.

Does anyone really want threads that are all about how fun it is to run around in karma trains and give props to the other servers karma train for being so many karma trainers?!

If this post didn’t make sense I apologize that you had to read it to this line.

I don’t have any idea how that post replies to mine, but from what the OG guys posted, it looks like LARP is one of the guilds I’ll be looking for when I’m back, so maybe I’ll run into you.

What’s the point? Why tell a bunch of people who have never encountered these people about them? If the readers are from the tier with the players, then they already know.

It’s sad what happens to video threads on this forum. Mindless zerging videos get tons of posts about how awesome it is, and any video displaying skill gets filled with posts about being ezmode and not helping the server and etc etc.

These forums are just not populated by the same demographic the DAoC forums were heh.

I’m currently working on a necro alt. It’s pretty fun and demanding, and nowhere even remotely near underpowered. If you do roll a necro, I highly recommend not talking to anyone who plays one unless you know they are good.

It really depends on what you are doing. I watch streams now and then, and it seems a lot of high tier tournament eles are going almost entirely glass with a double arcane burst setup. It can also be better for killing zergs to just lay down max dps immediately. If you are in a situation where the things you give up are compensated for by your team, then going glass makes ele an unmatched aoe damage monster.

I won’t say glass is the best way to play and anyone who doesn’t do it is just a bad that can’t handle it or anything like that; there are some very definite drawbacks to it and while you do a ton of aoe damage, you don’t get much in the way of big numbers popping up, at least compared to other dps class’ burst. There isn’t as much obvious return, but as you get more familiar with the ele, you just don’t need the defense to stay alive, and getting squishier forces you to get better.

Honestly, I think bunkers are too tanky and are wasting the ele potential, and I think I am too squishy and am really just doing it because it’s fun and intense. The sweet spot for general use is something like p/v/t gear with beryl/emerald jewelry, or berserker’s gear with tankier jewelry. But if the will to get glassy is there, the ele can make it work.

The elementalist has some of the best damage avoidance abilities in the game, with a skill cap that lets you run glassier and glassier the better you are. Personally, I run a d/d ele with a full suit of berserker’s armor, beryl/emerald jewelry, and power/prec/con damage weapons. I run standard cantrip traits with more lightning than most. This is sadly unchangeable as arcane is mandatory for eles and cantrips are essential for 1vx fights.

I have a bit over 16k hp and 1.9k armor. I do 1v1, 1vx, and group vs. zerg with this gear. I’m considering switching to full berserker’s jewelry if I feel like spending the gold. The ability to substitute skill for defense is one of the things that makes the ele such an amazing class. The question isn’t, is glass viable on an ele, the question is, are you confident enough in your skill to make it work.

Been reading this thread a bit. It seemed like a pretty terrible sounding matchup at first, but then it started picking up. Maybe it’s not so bad afterall. It’s not changing next week, right?

I never had this problem at all, then for a couple days it happened to me nonstop, and now it isn’t happening at all again. I have no idea what causes it, but trying to play with this bug is kitten near impossible. It seems like a small thing, but it really kittens you up.

To the ranger in Badger Spirits I just fought a few times: We didn’t get to finish any of the fights, but I still had more fun fighting you than any other ranger, so thank you for that anyway.

morrolan.9608:

dreztina.4820:

I have literally never had a single guild vs guild fight in this game. If you run as a coordinated guild group, your only option for decent fights is wiping large numbers of zergers. There’s just no group competitive scene, especially when one of the servers is Yaks.

Its all 3 servers. My guild was trying to get a small group going last night in EB but we couldn’t because of the zerging from Ebay and Mag.

All realms zerg, but Mag and Ehmry both have decently sized and very active roaming populations. Yaks? Not so much.

I’m not sure how the bugs are getting worse without patches, but it’s really starting to get to me. It didn’t use to be so bad, but now I’m having to deal with multiple bugs every run I do. I constantly can’t move after using any of my mobility skills, lightning flash doesn’t break stun when I teleport, churning earth freezes mid animation and never casts forcing me to flash to start moving again, I randomly start moving like I’m snared with no conditions and no enemies, magnetic grasp and RTL take me past the target, and the list goes on and on. It is just truly ridiculous that not only are none of the ele bugs being fixed, they are somehow getting more numerous and more frequent despite there not even being any patches.

Please, if any devs stumble upon this forum, please, consider fixing elementalist bugs.

Well, before I thought you were just a silly hipster, but now I see I’m being trolled.

Black Scoutsman.5830:

I have tried it. and it was fun for a day or two. But you can only push that brainless I win button so many times before it becomes old. Now if you need that validation for yourself then go right ahead, I’m not asking you to stop. I’m just saying forgive me if i’m not impressed by your lack of ingenuity and your compelling need to “destroy” me and other gamers who like to think outside the meta box. I can almost guarantee I get more enjoyment every time I beat one of the OP meta builds than you do from “pwning 100 scrubs” or “fearlessly diving into a zerg”.

I’m getting the feeling you use the phrase ‘mainstream’ a lot in your day to day life.

The real problem I found with arcana isn’t the overall cooldown, but the attunement specific gcd. From my experience, anything less than 20 arcana and it becomes impossible to smoothly transition between the attunements because the global starts to trip you up. If they removed or at least significantly reduced the gcd, I would definitely put more points into the other lines.

Ekove.4586:

dreztina.4820:

Ya it certainly caught me off guard. I quickly changed my mind about attacking that group when the ele took me to half with two autos. I’ll definitely tread a little more carefully around staff eles now until I know how they’re built.

Im surprised you didn’t know that…but overall the risk is not charging groups with a glass canon ranged character, but rather a group that doesn’t tunnel vision. There are much more dangerous things out there than a glass canon lighning ele. Maybe if I catch you while playing my rifle warrior you’ll see :P

I had literally never seen a glass cannon staff ele before yesterday lol. And trust me, I’ve taken my fair share of kill shots. “Ok that’s actually more than I want to deal with. I’m at half health, just going to duck out of here. You have been hit for 13k by kill shot! ……. :|”

So much clueless hate here. I doubt any of you have any idea what build the people in OG are actually running. There’s a lot more to a build than your weapons. Also, if you would actually watch the video before complaining, you would notice group comps such as ele, thief, ranger, ranger, engi. Is that an overpowered fotm group?

I play a D/D ele, and I have since it was considered an underpowered novelty. I am not going to stop playing the way I enjoy more than anything else in this game just because popular opinion has shifted and now it’s considered strong. If you think it’s so easy to succeed on a D/D ele, give it a try some time. I guarantee I’ll destroy you like every other person who figured ele was an easy to play win machine. Oh, and you have no idea what my build is, either.

It was an enjoyable video. You need to get better at picking up your bags tho Bunzy. :p

Opc.4718:

To those who want small groups to have an advantage over large groups – there already is. No orange crosswords. You’d be surprised how many large objectives you can flip while your main zerg is busy creating a distraction.

Uh what? Have you not seen how incredibly little it takes to get orange swords? I’ve literally been running around solo and died to a group and it put up swords where I died. kitten near anything over a 1v1 throws up swords.

Ya it certainly caught me off guard. I quickly changed my mind about attacking that group when the ele took me to half with two autos. I’ll definitely tread a little more carefully around staff eles now until I know how they’re built.

Rhoto.8791:

Dreztina, you were only destroying ppl on your lvl 30 necro the other night cuz of your cookie cutter build. Own up.

:p I think the two d/d eles helped haha.

But I do find it funny how much ire is directed towards us when mesmers have somehow fallen off the radar.

It’s ok Chipsu, people call me a fotm bunker d/d ele too lol. Popular opinion will shift again soon enough.

Running around on my ele this morning, and somehow I keep getting autoattacked for 2-3k/hit by staff eles. The bounce also seems a little odd. I was standing on a bridge by myself and got hit three times by it instantly, for more than 5k damage total. Is there something going on here I don’t know about? I don’t know how it’s even possible for me to be getting hit so hard by an ele autoattack.

Can you actually provide a single reason for why the game is better because a player who is downed by pvp damage can be rallied off a pve death?

And like it or leave it? What kind of stupid attitude is that? How about I like it, and I don’t want to leave it, so I’m trying to convince the devs to improve it.

I don’t usually label people, but you are one of the most rabid fanboys I have encountered in a great while.

I shouldn’t have to run around clearing all the mobs in an area mid fight to prevent rallies. Stop trying to justify a completely kitten mechanic that has absolutely no reason to exist by saying ‘oh well if you were good it wouldn’t matter’.

Chorazin.4107:

Dreztina, the same Dreztina from Bossiney?

No.

This is a really good guide, thanks for it. I’ve thought about scepter in the past but never used it, so I decided to grab one off the TP and roam for a while with my d/d build. It actually went surprisingly well considering I had so little experience with the scepter that I had to stop and kill some coyotes to level up the skills. My biggest concern which always kept me from trying it was that I thought I’d get caught by groups without the fire/earth 3’s, but the low cooldown blind let me stop important cc abilities which mostly made up for it.

One thing is tripping me up a bit though. I’m fairly glassy, and without my shocking aura, I absolutely have to have the rock barrier up to survive initial burst damage, but I’m having trouble getting it up. I roam and initiate in air, so if I’m running around and see I’m about to fight, I either have to switch to earth to cast it and lose my initiation, or go in and try to use it after the fight starts, which generally results in me taking way too much damage. I don’t know if you run into this problem as much in spvp (I roam wvw exclusively, generally solo), but do you have any advice for handling it?

I’d definitely watch any videos you put out. The feeling I got when running around tonight was that the scepter was very straight forward on the surface, but that it’d take a lot of practice to actually make it work at a high level.

Sol.4310:

So when are those fight nights, is it good duels or is it all Copy & Paste Mesmers or d/d Bunker Ele’s.

I’d been keen to join in and and start duel’s video. Of the Night.

Think I saw everything except a necro. Wide range of skill levels and builds. Think everyone there was able to find at least an opponent or two that gave ’em a really good fight.

Honestly, I think this is a really bad idea. I want non zerg action more than most, but you can’t make the game frustrating for the majority just to satisfy the minority. Making the targetting manual only, especially with the questionable controls in the game, will do nothing but frustrate most casual players and make them not want to play. If this change got rid of zergs, it’d be because all those people stopped playing and the game was about to die.

Zerging will always be here and is not inherently bad. What we need is more options and opportunity for small groups, not things that make the game worse for zergers.

While I do still actively pvp in wvw zones, I think a lot of stuff that was brought up here is good. However, as a quick note about the anonymity, it’s not quite as bad anymore. You can change it so that you see other peoples’ dyes, and there’s still the guild tag. You should be able to identify people by those. Also, you can /invite or /join people from other servers to talk to them. I too would prefer to just be able to see people’s names, but you shouldn’t feel too discouraged by the anonymity as there are some decent work arounds.

Is there any chance the ele wasn’t alone? A mesmer or thief could cloak the ele, or the ele could use the earth 3 skill (magnetic grasp, leap finisher) in a smoke field to stealth.

I couldn’t find a ‘pm the mods’ button, so I’m posting this here in hopes of a reply.

In our tier, there are two fairly separate factions. We have the real wvw’ers, and we have the roamers. The main matchup thread is populated mostly by the real wvw’ers, and so posting about roaming causes a fair amount of friction. I would like to try making a new thread specifically for the roaming side of wvw and see if there is enough interest to keep one going. So, is it allowed to have a second matchup thread for our tier, or would it get locked/merged?

Thank you for any official response.

Lina.9640:

dreztina.4820:

It’s funny, people always say I should go play spvp if I want competitive pvp. I just fought a thief a couple times, tiger finisher (spvp rank40-49) with the champion slayer title (200+ tournament kills), and he wasn’t even remotely challenging. I could probably list at least 10 thieves I’ve fought against who only do wvw that are 10x better.

Make that three times, he jumped me as I was typing this post and still lost.

Yeah, people aren’t typically a threat when you outnumber them three to one or more, which are the only times I see Mag actually fight anyone. Oh, unless the opponent is half health or can’t fight back in some way…

I honestly don’t know what you’re trying to achieve by saying that to me.

It’s funny, people always say I should go play spvp if I want competitive pvp. I just fought a thief a couple times, tiger finisher (spvp rank40-49) with the champion slayer title (200+ tournament kills), and he wasn’t even remotely challenging. I could probably list at least 10 thieves I’ve fought against who only do wvw that are 10x better.

Make that three times, he jumped me as I was typing this post and still lost.

saiyr.3071:

Nobody’s stopping you from making another one? I don’t get it o_O

Maybe I am wrong, but my impression was one thread/matchup/week.

It really is a shame that we are limited to just one thread.

Pendragon.8735:

dreztina.4820:

I always find it funny when people say ‘go play spvp’ whenever anyone mentions skill on the wvw forum. It’s funny because as soon as someone says it, it tells me they’ve never actually done spvp, or they tried it and were horrible, and it gave them this impression of it being some super highly competitive environment.

They mean paid, organized teams, not hotjoin obviously.

That’s the whole point of sPVP to draw in the competitive small group players.

“Structured PvP is a Player versus Player mode which allows competition on an even footing.”

You mean that incredibly active paid tpvp which requires teams to farm random pugs in free tournaments to get enough tickets to do? Which has insanely long queue times and only a handful of competitive guilds who demolish everyone else who tries? Which isn’t even worth trying to play at a high level if you don’t have a regular team with voice chat and a willingness to play cookie cutter builds with absolutely mandatory skills to compete such as portal mesmers? There’s a reason spvp, tpvp in particular is borderline dead. It really isn’t a viable option for most people, especially if you want to run 1-3 people rather than five.

And on topic, one thing I’d like to see changed, if downed state couldn’t be removed altogether, is to make it so downed people in pvp can only be rezzed by skills. I’d be fine with having to deal with someone getting back up if the flip side was one of their team mates sacrificing an important utility slot to do it.