Guild Wars 2

This matchup has been really fun so far. I’ve run into more good opponents than I ever have in the past. Lots of really tough fights. Learned about being able to /invite people from other servers too which is cool.

As an aside I’m actually enjoying the amount of hate I’m getting because of my guild tag. I just joined a couple days ago, but apparently it has a lot of history, and the lengths EB people are going through to try to kill me is quite funny. It can be annoying too, but this is the first time since I started playing that I’ve gotten that feeling of bitter rivalries that I loved in DAoC.

It makes me sad that people are starting to call D/D ele OP. When I first rolled mine, eles were widely considered one of the weakest classes in the game, and that their only viable build was staff bunker. D/D was a rarity that was considered a barely usable novelty. Now, I run around and I see D/D eles everywhere, and almost all of them are terrible.

I’m probably one of the extremely few people who runs a solo D/D ele with a full suit of zerker’s armor. I’m not tanky. I’m not full glass cannon either, but burst classes CAN kill me virtually instantly. I rely on my mobility and skill to win vs. classes that can almost insta kill me or vs groups, not tankiness and healing.

Sadly, because bunker D/D is the fotm, and bunkers in general are overpowered in this game, I am quite likely going to get nerfed even though my build is strong, but fair. I just hope that when Anet nerfs bunker eles, the damage isn’t too bad for the rest of us.

I’ll miss logging out, but oh well, not a huge deal. I’ll probably just take fewer risks than I do now. I still have a few more days to enjoy it at least.

I’m sorry, but I get the feeling you’ve never seen something like a S/D thief played to its full potential. I have, and it was probably the single strongest opponent I have ever seen in all the wvw I’ve done.

You keep saying D/D eles counter thieves as if that’s some indisputable fact. There are more builds than glass cannon thief, and the more utility and heal focused thieves are just insane. They heal themselves even faster than ele’s can, and more often since all they have to do is stealth to heal, and properly built thieves can stealth any time they want to. They don’t have the huge burst dps, but they can certainly either wear the ele down over time (a long time), or stalemate the fight with both sides healing too much to die.

The only fact is that a thief will NEVER die unless they let themselves. Maybe some bad d/d thief who is just spamming heartseeker will, sure, but any decent thief is 100% unkillable. They won’t win every fight, but just about, and even if they lose, they still won’t die unless they decide to be nice and give away the kill.

I hate when people complain about d/d burst thieves because it takes attention away from their other builds which are FAR more broken than d/d glass cannon will ever be.

Thieves are completely kittenedly overpowered, but it isn’t their damage that’s the problem. The frontload could be reduced with the dps spread out a bit more, but overall it’s really not that bad.

As was mentioned earlier, it’s everything else the thief can do that’s broken, and if you ever go up against a thief using one of their far more powerful and annoying builds, you’ll wish every thief was d/d burst.

I don’t know if he reads this, but there’s an Asura engi in the Shadowmoon guild that is incredibly good. Those were some of the toughest fights I’ve ever had. I wish I could have found you solo more, but oh well. First time we fought, I played really sloppily because I never figured I’d die to an engineer. I’m going to be more careful in the future.

1. Who cares why logging out is available? Doesn’t matter if it’s intended, it’s still there. Plenty of things that aren’t intended become an accepted part of the game.

2 Again, I don’t know why you people seem to think it takes so long to get back in. You don’t alt f4, I have no idea where that came from. You pop to character select, load back in, then go to wvw. It doesn’t take long at all. Probably about the same time as it takes the people you left in the middle of nowhere to get to where they were going.

3 If Anet has said this is something they want to stop so many times, link? Surely you can find at least one.

4 You guys don’t care? Really? Is that why you all are writing paragraphs in every thread about this topic? You’re doing a poor job of showing how little you care.

Maturity, integrity, honor. I’ve been watching you ‘for the realm’ zergers pat yourselves on the back for about 10 years now, and it never ceases to amuse me.

You are awful players who get destroyed any time you don’t have a massive numerical advantage, unless of course you’re fighting other awful zergers. There’s no honor in what you do. You aren’t some great general fighting to save his lands. You’re just a bad who happens to be a little more into the roleplaying aspect of MMORPGs than most.

If I end up in a situation where your numbers are able to overcome my skill, then I have absolutely no problem using my last recourse to deny you a kill that you most certainly don’t deserve. If that’s a problem, where’s the statement from Anet saying they consider it an exploit and want it to stop? As far as I know, Anet has never said a word about their stance on it.

Lyan.6804:

For me ur just a coward, i would say learn to play if u think that all that is meant to be like that, and yeah it is war and for me u do me a favour cause anyone like u that loggs out to not pay repair are mostly noobs cant afford some silver for repairs? or better yet, u think ur bag of loot will matter anything to me? do u imagine how many bags of loot any real wvwer loses cause they die in a zerg and theres lots of loot to pick up? Pls quit WvW ur a shame and anyone else that think they are so pros by doing that.
Worse than doing it is saying were good by doing it… only reason i post here.

So logging out is cowardly, but zerging someone(s) down with a massive numerical advantage is brave and honorable.

I’ll make you a deal, if we ever meet up and I’m running around solo and you’re in a zerg (which, from the sound of it, is always), make sure only one person fights me at a time. Tell everyone else to keep going or wait their turn. If you do that and I die 1v1, I promise I won’t log out.

You may say this is wvw, it isn’t a 1v1 setting. Getting zerged down is part of the game. Well guess what, at least for now, logging out is part of the game, too.

I’m going to keep logging out until Anet says we can’t. If 10 people chase me around for five minutes just to get a kill, I have no problem denying them that kill.

Btw, you don’t actually alt f4; I don’t know why people keep saying that. All you have to do is hit escape and go to char select. Couple loading screens and you’re back in wvw good to go. Doesn’t take long at all.

It’s amazing to me that there are still so many people who don’t understand how powerful elementalists can be. When I first started playing, I barely ever saw anything but staff eles, and even those weren’t common. Now, I constantly bump into d/d and s/d eles in wvw.

A ton of people have figured it out, but it seems there are still a lot behind the curve.

The culling is far worse now than it ever was before. I have a low end computer, and before this I could still reasonably see people. Now, enemies don’t load until I’m right on top of them. I’m not just talking zergs either, even small numbers of people aren’t loading anymore. Please turn it back.

That’s such a subjective question that it’s hard to give an answer that would have any real meaning. I think the best thing I could say is that nothing has changed to such a degree that you would like it now more than you did before.

I will say this however. I never tell people to just L2P because I think a game shouldn’t be balanced in such a way that you need to be a top tier player to enjoy the pvp, but if you really quit solely because you were dying to warriors, you should give it another shot and see if you can improve your play. Hundred blades burst specs are most definitely counterable, so if you enjoyed the game and were just frustrated by that, you should keep playing and try to find a build that works better.

I wanted to do a quick post on the interview itself.

First off, thanks to everyone that participated. This was probably the best communication Anet has done since launch, and it was made possible by both Jonathan Sharp being willing to put himself on the spot as well as the pros asking questions that were pertinent and important without being overly antagonistic. The thing with interviews like this is that the public always wants more, but if the interviewee gets grilled hard and has a miserable time, they aren’t too likely to do a repeat, so temperance is necessary.

To the host, I liked what you did with just letting people go and only posing questions when things started to die down or wander, but at the beginning, you were speaking so fast that I could barely understand you. I had to really concentrate to keep up, and I’m not usually one to make a complaint like that. Overall you did well, but it’s something you may want to keep in mind.

To the pros, I thought you guys did really well. Most of the questions and feedback you guys gave was really good. They were professionally asked, and when necessary, you guys were able to temper each other to keep the interview friendly and on track. It was especially impressive that you were able to achieve this while speaking in English.

To Jonathan Sharp, I really like the interviews you do. You’re the only person at Anet that seems to give straight forward answers with real details that aren’t excessively bogged down by the PR department. I have no doubt that at some point this will come back and bite you in the kitten but I hope that when it does, you can remember that there are a lot of people who appreciated it along the way.

Overall it was a really solid interview and I hope there can be more in the future.

There was a lot of good stuff said in the interview. It was light years ahead of that failed Reddit ama which was more fractals damage control than actual ama. I appreciated the specificity of the answers, as well as Jonathan’s willingness to publicly talk with multiple high level players who asked some fairly pointed questions.

I like what was said, but still, I wish it were faster. Personally I no longer play the game. I stopped when I realized I was logging in out of habit rather than actual enjoyment. But obviously I’m still interested; I’m here on the forums and reddit, I spent an hour listening to this. But I won’t be here forever. I’m still willing and even wanting to play, but if it takes too long, I’m going to get involved in another game or just lose interest in this one. I want to play this game, and I want these changes to come soon enough for my interest to still be here.

I know I’m just one person, but at the same time, I know I’m not the only one waiting. I’ve been keeping an eye on twitch since I like to watch streams, and both the streamers and the viewers have practically disappeared. There used to be tons of tournament players streaming at pretty much all times of the day, as well as a relatively solid 500+ viewers. Now, there are very few pvp streamers and the total viewer count is so low that GW2 is always on the third page of games on twitch. It takes time to improve the game, but there is a limit.

Maybe they’re complaining because this AMA has been going on for over eight hours and he hasn’t answered a single question.

If all it takes to please you is a dev saying ’we’re thinking about it and we might do something vaguely related to it at some point in the future,’ well, I guess it’s easy to be you.

It’s still just nothing but PR bs with absolutely zero details and every answer being ‘we are looking into it’ or ‘wait and see what’s coming’. Also, from one of his replies, it sounds like he isn’t even going to answer any pvp questions. So ya, basically just a worthless AMA with nothing new and no actual facts to look at. I really don’t know how Anet thought this would help anything.

Sadly, badge drops are done in a way that heavily favors zerging. People who run around with 50-100 others spamming tag abilities like they’re pveing get massive amounts of badges, while those who run solo/small group and face much greater challenges get almost none. If you zerg, well you certainly should be getting all the badges you need. If you don’t, your only choice is to grind pve to get geared.

Mirage.2597:

DAoC 8 man was all about who had the best/fastest sorc outfront

Is that speaking from experience? Mirage from Pellinor?

I’ve seen this topic a number of times of this forum, and it’s always the same response. “Just go take supply camps for small scale fights!” Most of the people here don’t have any idea what roaming pvp is, and they probably never will.

Games are almost always better with bots. The only time they are a problem is when encounters are set up so that bots can monopolize the spawn and make it impossible for anyone else to do. Considering that isn’t an issue in GW2, I miss the bots.

I don’t care about inflation or money selling or anything like that. The only reason companies are able to make doing that is because of how stupidly long it takes to get items in mmos. The bots wouldn’t exist if the game developers didn’t create the demand.

The pve farmers don’t care about that because they are just doing what they love, and they benefit from bots getting banned because their crap is worth more.

Sadly, those of us who don’t enjoy farming get the short end of the stick with prices that are 10x what they were with bots and no items of our own to sell to make up for it.

It’s dumb, but there’s nothing you can do about it. Most people who play MMOs are just pve’ers who love farming all day long and don’t like competing with bots, and MMO companies sure as hell like cutting out the companies making a profit off their game.

I don’t think you understand what ‘fundamentally flawed’ means.

Zawaka.5170:

On of thee biggest if not the biggest E-sports is league of legends. They balance around the professionals. Why? Because the professionals take the classes to there limit.

What? No they don’t. League has never been balanced for professional play. Riot tries to balance for both pro and casuals as well as possible, but they’ve never straight prioritized professionals over casuals for balance. Where did you even get that idea?

What does that have to do with what I said? I didn’t say anything about wanting more balance changes this patch. What I’m talking about is the fact that it takes almost three months just to do the first round of bug fixes. Or the fact that pvp content updates are slow. Or the fact that countless basic pvp features are absent from this game.

There are so many things this game needs to have a successful pvp scene, and the fact that they are going to be left undone because Anet only sees fit to have two guys working on pvp is very disappointing.

Tracker.6483:

I imagine that it’s hard for a free to play game to have more than 2 developers.

The lack of money coming into them is probaly the reason they worked on payed tournaments first and new PvE content that provide them with a small amount of income.

If they don’t make money, they can’t hire more people.

So sick of this “free game” excuse that people keep giving.

#1, was this game free? Because I don’t remember it being free. I’m pretty sure it had a $60 price tag on it. You think SC2 has two people working on it?

#2, cash shop? Did you forget about that little beauty giving them nonstop income that likely surpasses monthly subs?

Really, it’s just stupid to try to say Anet is hurting for money because of their business model. If it weren’t as if not more profitable than having monthly subs, they wouldn’t be using it.

I was really disappointed when I read they only had two guys working on pvp. That really shows you where Anet’s priorities lay and why everything takes so long to come out for pvp whereas they keep pumping out pve and cash shop stuff nonstop.

It shows you just how much Anet changed over the years. This is not the company I loved in GW1.

Well, I’ll certainly have to redo my build a bit, but overall I’m happy with these notes.

But are RTL/Magnetic Grasp really fixed? It will improve the flow of the class so much if they are.

I think this was a really good patch. I’ve been complaining about Anet a lot, but this patch is exactly what it should have been. I know everyone wants to see balance issues addressed, but quite frankly, they couldn’t be.

Almost every class in the game was so massively bugged that trying to fix both the bugs and the balance in the same patch would have been disastrous and resulted in just as many problems as it fixed.

Now, this patch fixed a LOT of the bugs (although yes, there are plenty more), and we will start to see balance change naturally as a result. Give it a week or two and I guarantee there will be major shifts without Anet doing anything else. After that point, Anet will be able to see what truly is and isn’t overpowered and then balance accordingly.

The best way to get into the pvp scene is to pvp. Go play it and die over and over until you stop dying and start winning. In pvp, there’s no substitute for experience.

I don’t play tpvp, but there’s something that always struck me as odd about it.

The game released without any kind of ranking system, and as far as I know, there is no plan to add one.

Paid tournaments were a big attraction. Why? Because they would separate hardcore teams from casual teams so that players of equal skill would be matched more often.

But isn’t that why most games use a ranking system? In other words, did Anet purposefully not include a ranking system so that they could use the paid tournament system as an artificial substitute that had the added benefit of getting pvpers to use the cash shop?

I almost never get them any more. I actually got one last night on a new char and when I saw it in my bag there was a moment of, wait, what’s that?

I honestly wouldn’t have much of a problem with thieves if stealth weren’t broken. If they made it so stealth worked right, then thieves would be a high risk high reward glass cannon that could drop you fast, but also potentially die before their second stealth.

esdf movement, qbinds for utility slots, shift + 1-4 for attunements

Of course people are impatient; haven’t you seen the number of pvpers dwindling? If anet sits on their kitten too long, there won’t be any pvpers left by the time they finally make improvements.

Larynx.2453:

Mists are server specific, game pool is region based.

Wait, what? You mean the server browser shows all the games in the entire region? Jfc, I thought there were so few servers being used because I’m on a lower pop server. That’s really sad.

My main is an ele, and my first alt was an engi. I know the necro isn’t a perfect fit, but I’ve always liked the idea and appearance of the necro and the skills, so I’m hoping I can find a setup that is close enough to the playstyle I like to work.

I’m looking to play a necro, but I’m not sure what weapons/traits would fit my playstyle. I like moving a lot, I like spamming a lot, I like switching weapons and using as many skills as possible. I don’t know how well the necro fits those things, but I want to try it out and see if I can find something that’ll work.

Thanks for any help.

I run 30 arcane on the ele and three kits on the engi if that answers your question. :p I think I’ll have to look into the necro more; it’s always interested me a bit but there are a couple things that have held me back. Mostly that I wasn’t sure if they spam much and also that I like mobility, but maybe they have something else I can get into.

Thanks for the reply.

I only like chars that require nonstop button pushing, and while I have already leveled and enjoyed engi and ele in wvw and spvp, I’d like to have another character to level with the guild. Are any of the other classes spammy? Or able to be built/played in a way that is? I was thinking that maybe a necro would be, but I’m not sure.

Did a bit of pvp this morning. The smallest number of mesmers I saw on enemy teams was five, ranging up to seven at times. The class is already a hardcore fotm.

I don’t know where people get the idea that there’s no culling issue with thieves in spvp. It still takes a good two seconds before they show up after they start attacking.

Also, the only people who think nerfs kill games are the people who play overpowered kitten nonstop and are affected by them. Everyone else loves it when overpowered classes get nerfed.

This is how I view mesmers:
A friend of mine was trying out the game and he asked me what he should play. I told him a mesmer because I figured it’d fit his play style.

His first day, he pve’ed a bit and just did some questing in the starter zone to familiarize himself with the game. The second day he wanted to do some spvp, so I helped him get geared/specced and we started doing hotjoins.

After a couple hours, he was consistently winning fights and getting in the top 3 points in the game. He had no idea what effects were what, what combo fields were, what classes had which abilities, builds, map layouts/objectives, or anything else. All he was doing was spamming his abilities on everything he ran into, and he was killing virtually everyone except other mesmers and the occasional really good player on another class.

I told him, ‘ya, mesmers are kinda op right now’ His reply? ‘no kitten’

MindlessRuff.1948:

Well the weapon you want to switch to will never change places if you put it in your first slot, and think of how much trouble Arena net would have implementing an out of combat weapon swap, they have much bigger issues to worry about at the moment.

Considering this is the elementalist forum, anyone who would want this almost certainly uses some form of dual wield, which makes it a lot more annoying than just swapping a single item in and out.

Sadly, I think this discussion will never go anywhere on the wvw forum. I’ve mentioned this issue before, and it’s always the same thing: ‘go kill some dolyaks and supply camps!’ The people here just don’t get it, and I doubt that’ll change until the shininess of being part of a “realm” wears off.

I’ve done it a few times. Not often, but when leveling a lowbie, if I felt a lvl 80 really went out of their way to be an kitten I hit char select before the stomp. Just dying doesn’t bug me, but if a group of 80s chases my boosted char half way across a zone to catch me, I don’t feel bad about denying them the kill. That’s worth more to me than a loading screen.

Anet should make it so you can’t do that, and I won’t miss it if they do, but until then, I’ll continue to use it when I feel appropriate.

Probably. The whole getting rid of the holy trinity thing never really panned out anyway. Look at any ideal group in virtually any situation, and I guarantee you it’ll have something like 1-2 supports, 1-2 tanks, rest dps. There may be less restrictions as to who can be what, but the trinity remains as strongly as ever.

Maybe the fact that tpvp is a completely different game mode from every other form of pvp in this game has something to do with it.

Trickyg.8752:

Blah blah blah, I hate everything new thrown into the game and I’ll QQ no matter what changes or doesn’t change.

Don’t forget there are 5 pages of class changes coming in this patch as well.

Gee, what a compelling post.

It sounds awful honestly. Regardless of the map just being a rehash of the current maps with some pretty new graphics, it is going to be a total mess with class mobility imbalances. Right now, only a few classes have skills that can let them change elevation. Of those, only the thief has one that is spammable with no cooldown. And then of course there’s mesmer portal. Somehow Anet thought it would be a good idea to make their new spvp map one that is custom tailored to the abilities of two of the most problematic classes in the game.

Since when is downed state a necessary counter to burst? No pvp game before this ever had to rely on some horrible, unenjoyable mechanic as a bandaid counter. If people are dying too fast, lower burst. If the damage is OK, add more defensive options. I can’t remember the name of the spell in GW1, maybe Aegis, but monks were able to cast a short duration buff that massively reduced incoming damage. Worked perfectly fine to counter burst teams.