Guild Wars 2

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Weakness affects the endurance, a hard counter to vigor. A condition to solely counter those who invest so heavily in damage would be fair? They already have less defense for investing so high in crit.

True. That and I do believe the game mode desires players having the ability to quickly switch the ownership of nodes (or games get called 40s before they actually finish) too much anti-burst would drastically slow down the pace of the game imo. Though a consistent minor damage decrease should be fine and current weakness isn’t consistent.

Numot.3965:

ensoriki.5789:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Having it only affect critical attacks would make weakness a very niche condition. Especially in pve.

In addition it’s keeping this condition in the land of Rng.
a 15% reduction or something along those lines in damage would be very potent in terms of damage mitigation for Staff ele, necro and mace/hammer warriors. Giving the warrior an indirect way of going around their lack of protection.

Flat reduction makes it too strong when paired with protection though, meaning either protection needs to be reduced or it has to be random.

The thing to note is who applies weakness and how.
It being paired with protection will not be common in the slightest unless you have a Signet build Staff ele. Which to be frank.
I’m not losing my mind over.

So generally for it to be used with protection will require some sort of team effort.
Except I think for one signet Guardians have, but I can’t recall if it is even run.

Edit: Signet of judgement* but that already decreases damage by 10%, trading that off for a 15% reduction of 5s? Is interesting but not huge and the duration can be reduced.

They should hide rank so players stop crying about rank 1’s.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Having it only affect critical attacks would make weakness a very niche condition. Especially in pve.

In addition it’s keeping this condition in the land of Rng.
a 15% reduction or something along those lines in damage would be very potent in terms of damage mitigation for Staff ele, necro and mace/hammer warriors. Giving the warrior an indirect way of going around their lack of protection.

Doesn’t work. Just making yourself mediocre at unload to be meh with your vital shot.
Vital shot is more of a skill that can go to conditions and it can go to power, but it’s not overly superior in one or the other, which is fine assuming slots 2-5 work well. Hybrid is meh because you have no other conditions of note, so Vital shot plays the role of a cover condition with nothing to cover since you have no other significant conditions other than bleed.

garethh.3518:

ensoriki.5789:

Removing builds from the game sure does improve variety.
If Weakness removed crits which generally burst builds are dependent on, then what happens is a greater pull to go towards conditions than current or crit builds trying to fit in more condi removal dropping their damage and generally being more ineffective as a result of how ezpz conditions are applied anyways (so might as well scratch the crit build).

It definitely be interesting if weakness gave better damage reduction and that would make some skills much more interesting if it wasn’t an rng based reduction, but shutting down crits? Are you cereal?

If weakness only ever lasted 1-3 seconds, that would actually be a fine mechanic, a strategic anti-burst hate.
Something that actually lets you have some innate teamwork with others is soarly needed.

I rather it’s damage reduction wasn’t based on Rng. Something like a 15% damage reduction that worked on all direct damage in addition to its current endurance effect.
Given the professions that actually apply weakness I’d think that an interesting change.
@ John.
Pistol thieves

PvP generally doesn’t require frequent content updates, assuming it’s at a reasonable state.

Krilce.7864:

Dagins.5163:

garethh.3518:

Off the top of my head, make it line of sight and drop the range or cut the ability to use it while CC’d.

I advice cutting yourself instead if you feel injustice, and leaving this fun mechanic to people who enjoy it at least since headstart.

You aren’t taking into consideration people you are fighting against, as they surely do not enjoy someone with spammable mini portal. Game should be enjoyable for both sides, not only one.

If I’m not playing melee it’s of little consequence considering projectiles in this game heat-seak unless moving at a snails pace hardly care if you teleport and anything outside of that 1200 range means generally complete disengagement and time for CD’s to replenish.

The maximum range is obtuse, the practical range is about 1500.

djtool.8372:

I’m in the camp for a severe reduction in crit percentage* if not making it effectively zero*. Even if that means putting in extra work to adjust duration times.

I’m not knowledgeable enough to know but this type of change may strongly encourage a wider variety of builds.

Removing builds from the game sure does improve variety.
If Weakness removed crits which generally burst builds are dependent on, then what happens is a greater pull to go towards conditions than current or crit builds trying to fit in more condi removal dropping their damage and generally being more ineffective as a result of how ezpz conditions are applied anyways (so might as well scratch the crit build).

It definitely be interesting if weakness gave better damage reduction and that would make some skills much more interesting if it wasn’t an rng based reduction, but shutting down crits? Are you cereal?

Smite has better infrastructure for casual play.
Though I know me and a bud have been playing Smite more than GW2. Actually I don’t know if he’s ever coming back. Intra-profession balance turns people off.

Did people start playing this game only yesterday?
How are you “forced to play a build based on a bug mechanic”. When S/P and S/D have existed since launch. What because of Flanking strike stealing 2 boons instead of removing 1? Get real hombre
Want more?
Inf strike to the trebuchet from the bottom of the treb. Simply go back and forth.
Inf strike from atop the henge on the left side behind pillar, break LoS everytime doesn’t require 1200 range.
Inf strike back and forth from behind that piece of shrapnel at Mine. Inf strike from the corner of the stairs at Keep break LoS everyday. Less than 1200 range. Though Inf strike to Clocktower is less than 1200 too mind you.
Inf strike from behind the rocks on bear to players in the middle.
Inf strike from under the bridge at alter to players on the point.
Inf strike from atop the temple upper layer.
Inf strike behind pillar at Gate.
Inf strike behind the fencing at waterfall and quarry. Inf strike from the upper levels down onto graveyard.
Inf strike + Shadowstep/Inf signet+Steal (maybe throw in a IA) to cross 1500-3900 units such as between graveyard to side points when there is an opponent on the point.
U mad brah?

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

ensoriki.5789:

The “design flaw” isn’t in initiative it’s in the skills themself. Initiative works fine if all your skills have clear useful purpose. Initiative wants equilibrium within the set if it doesn’t have that and something is polarizing then it degenerates to 5-1 play. When it has it, then the opportunity cost of all your actions must be considered arguably more than any other profession in the game.

We are saying precisely the same thing with different words. The initiative cost makes Thief action more costly than any other profession in the game. Not arguably, absolutely. Considering it in the terms you used, the reason why D/P is better designed than the other sets is precisely beacuse the Backstab combo does not drain the initiative resource like other sets (i.e. your example of Pistol Whip), thereby allowing more access to the situational uses of the other skills on the bar. Absolute parity in the skill cost/benefit across the whole bar is not a real possibility. Depending on your opponent there will ALWAYS be an ideal rotation to execute regardless of the relative balance across your bar as long as the initiative system is in place, thus perpetuating the repetative nature of the profession.

Think you’re looking too far into this. This is fairly similar to every other profession. Who can use a rotation of cooldown skills and generally will since their is no going back with the CD system.
Ergo, Flurry/Bulls-charge/Bolas/blade-throw -> HB -> Whirling strike for instance.

Or.
11111111111111111111111111111111 – Ranger shortbow.
There generally always is ideal rotations/button presses that you will perform unless the opponent or other circumstances force you switch this up. It’s really not an initiative issue if say you look at P/D without sneak attack. Shadow strike does damage but not that much and puts you in melee range to start it off which has obvious consequences. Plus with the warp spamming that is not ideal. Body shot is body shot, not ideal. DD does trash damage, not ideal. Spamming CnD? Redundant. Depending on your opponent as any profession there is an Ideal rotation, it does not mean you will get to execute it. All that matters is that there opportunity cost for when you’re unable to execute it, that it actually matters.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

The problem with thief isn’t specific to any of the weapon sets, but more of a design choice that was not a very good one. Thief is the only class in this game that has to manage a resource pool (initiative) for skills rather than CD’s. This is coupled with not having CD’s on skills, so the most efficient way to play thief in ANY weapon set is to be VERY repetetive in skill use that only changes situationally.

Not really. Think of Sword/Pistol and Sword/Dagger in the time period between the Tactical strike nerf to the quickness nerf. Think of the two sets between that the time period of the tactical strike nerf to right before this May FS change. I’m sure while D/P had most people ensnared you all got bored enough out of repetition at some point to fool around with some other toys. These sets used all their skills (save DD, which is very situational), and could reinforce there damage with haste.
There was no 5-1 play on S/D in spvp after Tactical was nerfed, it simply made zero sense to do so because the trade off pressing 5-1 on S/D is very poor. Instead Tactical factors more as an emergency “I need a interrupt!” and as a tool to re-engage after using stealth as a defensive option, which is fine. Same on S/P though it has that emergency daze button already in headshot. Before quickness nerf you could go for a double PW with haste certainly but thats 10/12 base. 10/15 augmented. This is a pretty clear opportunity cost because relative to D/P or D/D it’s the most expensive out of the three options. The opportunity cost of S/P was reinforced by stability and retaliation which made just spamming PW without conscious ineffective if not lethal.
Coupled with that old damage nerf from way back, S/P would still frequently need more than 2 pistol whips to accomplish what it wanted on a full health target, so blowing up your resource could screw you over hard.
Same with S/D. Though it was much less ini heavy.

If you wanted to pop in on a ranger like a D/P thief may of tried with Haste and Pistol whip while he’s sitting their chilling, good luck with that when he healing springs back up (unless you get a lucky head shot), if he even had to. You end up juggling your inf strikes a fair bit as zoning tools (or at least thats how I adjusted my play) zoning right before the trap by spacing more than 600 units and dodging over it, then going in and pressuring, continually before you could actually haste +PW him down safely. Sure in a team fight I could care less about that crap and just pick a weakened target and press 3, but in any situation where sense was required against someone with a head on their shoulder spamming 3 with S/P would be very dumb. You’d blow all your ini to do something mostly negated and then have no ini to protect yourself. No thanks jeff.

Think about it for a second… Depending on weapon set you might use your stealth combo then its 2,2,2,2,2,2,2 or whatever your stealth application is or you build to 5,1,5,1,5,1,5,1. It doesn’t matter which weapon set thief is in. There is an inherent design flaw that makes playing thief well nothing more that having situational awareness and reliably repeating the same combination of button presses for the given situation.

If they got rid of the initiative system and gave thief CD’s like everyone else it would improve the class (IMO), but that kind of redesign isn’t likely to happen, so I suppose get used to pretending that you aren’t basically emulating what a macro would do more efficiently.

The “design flaw” isn’t in initiative it’s in the skills themself. Initiative works fine if all your skills have clear useful purpose. Initiative wants equilibrium within the set if it doesn’t have that and something is polarizing then it degenerates to 5-1 play. When it has it, then the opportunity cost of all your actions must be considered arguably more than any other profession in the game. As when skills are actually in check on a thief, no one is punished more than he is for misuse. When they aren’t, no-one gets let off easier for misuse than he does.

Mrbig.8019:

Seriously, i can’t believe this.

When a projectile/charge is launched and you teleport at 1200 range behind the opponent who launched /charget it , turning by 180 degrees, THEY DO A BACKFLIP AND FOLLOW YOU , THIS IS AGAINST PHYSICS LAW.

And fix godkitten dodge queue, it’s getting really, REALLY annoying.

Been complaining about this for months. Completely infuriating. For those who play pedestrian classes it is not just channelled skills. Way too many skills auto face and on top of that I swear that bullets are literally teleporting after me.

“Great secondary utility weapon set”
Relative to what exactly, Mesmer Torch?

What are you talking about in terms of D/P serious? The combo is marginalizing in terms of intra-professional balance but that’s about where the puck stops.
HS+BP aside it’s a well pieced together set, though it lacks damage once that combo isn’t a factor. Shadowshot lets you zone in, not having to worry about traps and can even get past factors in elevation. Get to squishy/weakened targets and you can finish them off with Heartseeker, stop em with HS, and finish with BP or defend yourself with it. The only synergy is the combo? That’s false. With steal on a kitten cooldown at maximum it’s not a consistant gap closer which is part of why shadowshot is a good skill because it is a reliable gap closer that you can use multiple times.

Aarean.5398:

It would be more interesting to explore south to crystal desert before going to cantha. And a hurdle to get over is that cantha went isolationist so the devs would have to go way out of their way to fit in racial balance considering cantha is all human and they pushed all other races out. Not all players are human anymore. It would end up being introduced slowly if it ever is introduced. Charr wouldnt fit in cantha at all so alot of twisting of the lore would need to be done. Probably another factions type situation or godly threat/new leader. Otherwise it would never make sense for cantha to accept any races that ever stood against humans.

Shiro Tagachi returns!
PART TWO!

Pongmei Valley and the Shin je mountains were the best things in GW1 except for maybe Tihark Orchard.
Then there was than Tengu mission with Togo in the Bonus mission pack? Those heights, that vista….
I never liked the tyria country wasn’t till factions that I really liked GW1 (surprised I even bought Factions considering how negative I felt about tyria at the time).
Itching to go back there hard.

I’d hate to see this matter of intra-profession balance swept under the rug as a result of any slight hot-join success with P/x.
Jon plz.

JonPeters.5630:

We are looking into this. I actually think P/P has a lot of utility. Blind field, daze, vuln stacking. However damage is a bit low. We are making some headway here in the12/14 build so be patient for one more week.

Jon

It’s been months, more headway.

Greatsword warriors get their bleed damage increased, they apply the bleeds on critical hits.

If anything it’s a tree that makes “sense.”
Other professions are not so lucky and have condition damage trees without applications of conditions within them. So the stat is completely wasted. That isn’t the case for warriors. Since precise strikes causes 3 stacks of bleeding at minimum that trait is always giving you some extra damage. 1.5x from critical hits landing an additional from bleeds being caused. Since the condi damage fuels the bleed trait you’ll find your damage increasing more as you go into the trait even if you deal only power damage.
Hardly an example of “horrible” stat displacement.

Unload is lethal if you get a glass cannon who sits still doesn’t use any skills, and has no teammates helping him.

NevirSayDie.6235:

If the game’s not fun enough with the current set of cosmetics, it won’t become fun enough with a bigger set of cosmetics.

A good cosmetic reward system can be nice and add a bit to the experience, but apart from that, either the game is fun or it’s not.

Word.

Im waiting for this highly talented P/D use. I’ve met many P/D thieves of various skills. I’ve played with and against thieves of various skill levels top-bottom in NA I’ve seen quite a few. I’ve seen the videos, I’ve played it. P/D is 2 buttons and a utility skill. Shadow strike used when immobilized/warded. Dancing daggers MIGHT be thrown in when Caltrops is down, and by “might” I mean “will not”. If DD is thrown it’s because P/D has so much initiative sitting down since it only needs to focus on 5-1 it might thrown in dancing daggers because it simply has nothing better to do with the initiative it’s not spending pressing 5-1.

Look at video.
See 5-1 play, Watch 2-4 completely ignored utilizing caltrops to make up for being otherwise ignorable on players who want to play in that sandbox.
See that my points are completely reinforced by the video. What a wonderful set when you dgaf about 3 abilities. P/P uses more sense, and even D/D has more varied skill usage. P/D is flawed as hell.
Come at me bro
Hot-join so good.

They really captured the Assassin in P/D when 5-1 plays like Off-hand dual moebius-strike death blossom, with half the sense. P/D clearly needs benefit so that all it’s skills make sense to use within the initiative mechanic in general as it is now, you could give skills 2-4 a 10s cooldown and no would care because 99% of the time they don’t need to use them. Your idol himself does not and his WvW play literally consists of 5-1, skillfully extending it to using 5 on wild Deer so that he doesn’t have to actually gap close. How anyone can see that P/D is in a poor state where 1 skill and utility are being used to make up for the rest of the set utterly flopping and be okay with that is mind-boggling. That’s not to strike at Bill however it is what it is. P/D is a set in need of repair possibly even more than P/P in that at it’s very root most of it’s skills are forgettable when every other set even if they have similar issues, does not have them to the same extent.
Though I suppose one of the devs can say they’re fine if Body shot, Shadow strike and Dancing Dagger are not used by P/D thieves except on full moon’s between 3 am and 3:01 am but only if they roll 6 on the dice.

Pistol thieves right now are a realy rare sight in tpvp, and that has good reasons.
The main reasons is that Pistol thief doesnt do anything better than any other class, the key role of Condition pressure in teamfights is already taken by the HGH engi, who does a lot better at it. Also Pistol/Pistol thieves within the set have no way to mitigate dmg or disengage. I’d say this makes them easier targets to focus, but a Pistol/Pistol thief is like a fly attacking an elephant, insignificant.

Copy-pasta aside. While we’re talking about state of professions what about state of Weapons. P/P and P/D are both sloppy from day one. Since Shadow strike was given the limitation of melee range it might as well have a 30s cooldown considering you’ll only use it in the most niche of situations whether you are power spec’d or condi spec’d you’re better off doing CnD+1 all day every day for simply 2 more initiative.
The P/D weapon set basically uses two skills for it’s life-span unless heinously forced to do otherwise such as being inside a guardian circle ward with nukes coming in. Mind you after doing that he has no reason to Shadow strike again. It’s not just the effectivity people feel in hot-joins spamming 5-1, that the ideal situation for P/D 99% of the time is spamming 5-1 is a terrible shame. Not to mention that Caltrops frequently gets used as a crutch because even for Sneak attacks strength, the weapon set is still quite forgettable save one bandaid utility. When Haste was such a bandaid that it made S/P and S/D capable it got nerfed and threw them farther from favor until S/D got it’s tweak. We still have bandaid utils because the weapon sets are disgraceful srs. I bring up P/D simply because P/P usually gets the hit but P/D is disgusting itself. You telling me however I spec’d, 5-1 will do all I need, cover most of my condi-removal, healing and other defensive means and out-damage basically any other rotation I could possibly do in any circumstance since the combo only starts becoming negligible on targets with 25 bleed stacks?. Lol wot? Not to mention being only 1 condi so that despite it’s vast linearity in offensive skills, the delivery of the damage is shallow and easily countered?
How long till P/D gets it’s tweak?
How long till P/P gets the tweak.
P/P The duck set. No mobility whatsoever, not that P/D’s is wonderful considering melee range and it stopping for a mere bump on the road like a mesmers Phase retreat with only greater limitations.
P/P barely moves, Black Powder isn’t ground-targetted, so it’s defensive against other range assault is essentially non-existing, and so for basically having no defense, it’s utility isn’t valuable enough for a util set. As a damage set, the damage isn’t practical enough or high enough to make up for the overall lack of defense of the set itself. As a hybrid of utility and damage? It still flops because the only extra utility it’s bringing is vulnerability. It has a 300 range benefit over Inf strike which otherwise S/P is bringing basically everything you could want of P/P, for a small price to pay of 300 range.

All this solved by the January update of 10% instead of 5% on Pistol mastery? Of course not. P/P Is basically a single target damage spec with some util thrown in, where slot 2 is mediocre in pvp and niche in pve. With it’s main benefit being comboing with Black Powder to apply 1 blind. Or being a cover condition (covering what exactly? I don’t know. Not anything he himself applied). Slot 5 is a pbaoe field that is negated by proper spacing (which is fine) for a ranged set and can’t give it real tangible defense considering overall lack of defense in contrast to D/P and S/P which have defensive capabilities thrown from skills 2-5 instead of just 4 and 5.

So this patch is all bug fixes.
When will we see Pistol/X thief? June? I don’t doubt that someone can pull off niche strats with full team composition building around that thief.
But why would they want to, and why should any weapon set be simply niche? If that is what we’re stepping away from in comparison to gw1.
The devs certainly have time to give the Pistol thieves some love for Junes patch.

Imo. You can start by checking caltrops bleed. Then establishing P/P and P/D as something proper on their own merits. John Peters said P/P has a lot of util, and just had low damage. P/P has util but does it work? If that’s how he feels than they’re pushing it more towards an all-or-nothing damage set with sorrowful defenses (which is fine) in which case, it still doesn’t hit hard enough in general not just Unload.

Rune of speed more than anything I want to use.
5% changed to 10% and stacks with swiftness and ims signets.

Wtf are you talking about Numot?
PW’s a victim of them not wanting to nerf quickness.

Black Powder ground-targetted.
Dancing dagger inflicting poison 2s per bounce.
Unblockable shifted back to first hit of FS, One of the boon steals shifted over.
Shadow Embrace and Shadow rejuvenation merged into one trait, toned down accordingly.
Leeching and Venom share merged into one trait.
Assassin’s Retreat and Reward Merged.
Hard to Catch and Fleet of Foot merge.
Flanking Strikes and Initial Strikes Merge.
Sundering strikes to not be crit based and lose the ICD.
Increased damage on tripwire and Needle trap.
Blind on Shadow strike dagger hit, 2 bleeds thrown on the gun shot.
Sneak attack nerfed.
Vulnerability on CnD put to 5 stacks.
Power shots gives Trick shot an extra bounce.
Caltrops puts out only 1 bleed, CD decreased.

+1
Current tick isn’t exhilerating. Slowing down the tick or boosting other factors would be better.

There was a point in beta I believe where the economist I think it was posted the overall profession %, crafting level stuff like that.

Anyone in office can later copy n paste some stats as in profession % weapon usage % and utility %. While I’m aware you can look at what’s standard just by playing, I’d like to see how frequent the uncommon is.

As in something like
12% of games have a guardian.
13% of guardian games have a GS slotted.
something like that.
Win/Loss rate for a profession.
tl;dr
Something like this :http://www.smiterepo.com/trends/

Found it cool since GW2’s web stuff is put on a back burner I think, some copy n paste would be fine.

KrisHQ.4719:

ensoriki.5789:

Deep wound on Necro’s?
Please do not rustle my jimmies.

Give them disease and call it a day.

Well. The name is irrelevant. You could call it whatever you like.
Having a condition on necromancers that reduced 20% of maximum HP seems very likely (immersion-wise)?
If your reply was not “immersion-critique” i’d like to hear WHY it would be a bad idea

Immersion how? Deep wound existed in GW1, Necro’s didnt have it. They had a Damage over time condition called disease that would spread and constantly reapply itself making it possible for the condition for the theoretically if a person played really poorly to never come off from simply one application of it.

Necro’s are finding themself having to compete with others for DoT but they don’t have confusion or burning when dealing conditions. Simultaneously the death shroud doesn’t provide much support for condi’s.
While the original DW was a powerful universally useful condition. It would definitely help out the War and thief, but in terms of diversifying the necro why would you even want that profession to have such a powerful condition that they can then spread by them self when it be safer as a single-target application that can be amplified by a necro teammate using epidemic.

Disease makes a lot of sense for the DoT needs and since it spreads itself.

There used to be a problem causing enough damage to a Defense Warrior running Turtles because S/ triggered it on auto, inf strike, DD, and tactical. Since S/ doesn’t do any more damage than it did a month ago would not be surprised if S/D thieves were finding an issue with some warriors. On the other hand if someone can get you without an SR up it’s not hard for you to get blown up and SR can be forcibly popped.

Deep wound on Necro’s?
Please do not rustle my jimmies.

Give them disease and call it a day.

6. Hot-joins aren’t really living up to the solo-que aspect. I don’t have an issue with their not being a specific solo-que, if Hot-joins can properly facilitate that role of wannabe or casual play versus the organized tpvp but they to this day still fall short of doing so. In-fact free tournaments even when we were being pre-made farmed better provided this and also helped to meet people to form mostly unorganized pugs or organized teams.

7. Game just doesn’t feel right? Any unused weapon-set is a major as I see it failure on Anet. When they said this
"
RPS: Guild Wars, drawing on Magic the Gathering and putting building your own character to the forefront, really was unlike any game of its type. How are you changing it this time out? Any to what aim?

Eric Flannum: Our goal remained the same. We wanted to keep the customisability which Guild Wars had. If I’m a Ranger in Guild Wars, I can be a very different character. I could have a hammer and a pet and be a melee character or I could have a bow and interrupt and harass other characters. They’re very different play styles, and you can customise your plays tyle. That was really important to preserve in GW2.

RPS: So what’s changed?

Eric Flannum: One of the issues we always ran into is that some players are not good at building those characters. We went through making sure that we didn’t take the customisation out, but also made it so you can’t make a really, really bad character. In Guild Wars 2, for example, the first half of your skill-bar is determined by what you’re holding in your hand. So if I’m a warrior and I have a sword and a shield and then I switch to a great sword, my first five skills which change to reflect to show that I have a greatsword now. Those aren’t skills you drag to your skill-bar – they’re skills which are determined by your profession and what you’re holding. That way we’re sure that people have at least basic, useable skills which they can build on top of. The second 5 are ones you can slot yourself, and enhance your basic functionality."
You can’t restrict us to 5 skills a weapon for the sake of improving competence and balance and then have weapons nigh disregarded by the community. What the hell was the point of that design decision then. Hellishly disappointing and I certainly ran into and know more than I want to know of people who left (including those on LB) because of how weapons were handled and feeling pigeon-holed or kicked when they were down. GW2 should have a lot more variety in it than it does right now, a dang good amount more, because they’re design decisions apparently from the interview above…shouldn’t have people disregarding any weapon set as simply mediocre or trash.

8. Tying it all together the way PvP is run leaves you wanting. Spectator and Custom are good additions but they’re certainly not finished which is fine, but that is going to be a turn off. Same with the leaderboards. Pvp Infrastructure is obviously not where it could be and though it improves over-time it’s not at a state where I would find it unreasonable for people to not want to be a part of it.

9. Map design itself. Though pts are equal distance, the terrain isn’t the same and it can be problematic for visual (dis)advantage, LoS (dis)advantage or even just holding on pts due to pt size (difference in graveyard vs the rest of the game for example) or the how the are around the point is (clocktowers elevation).

10. Underwater combat is lacking and this doesn’t affect Temple but even outside of competitive as far as your “chill-time” goes Capricorn is a pain you want to run away from. Maybe I’m alone but I don’t hate UC, I’m just not going to bother with something that feels that poor at the moment unless forced (temple). Maps sucking is fine when you have quite a few maps you just have a list of perma banned maps (like Capricorn atm) and then maps you counter-pick/ban based on the situation. However UWC should be fixed this year or next.

These all effect the enjoyability of watching and playing the game and hurt moving forward. After watching a few scrims I don’t feel like watching GW2 anymore. For fights it’s not bad or even just following an individual player but as a whole it’s a pain to observe and though the casters do what they can with the way the focus splits decisions to check a back-capping ranger for instance while there is an interesting fight at mid? Annoying.
inb4wtfareyoutalkingaboutensoriki

Tundera.7956:

do you think GW2 hasn’t taken off? Give me some ideas so we can set it up the right way.

As I feel.
1. The scoring system. 1 pt a second to 500 is a very unclimactic scoring system. Individual points within that 500 feel like they have no meaning. The interval at which pts are given is insanely short and the value of player deaths while still significant enough to be a contributing or even decisive factor in the map, often feels forgettable the majority of the time. The Guild-Lord is still worth relative peanuts.

2. Lack of Central focus. I may be alone but the reason I found GvG even semi-interesting was that the Lord was a central focus you worked towards, various aspects were present but that central focus at the end tied it all in together. Mind you I don’t have a passion for GvG that others here did in the slightest but it was easier to follow. Capture points are just circles, there are 3 of them, while mid is usually strategically valuable numerically it is no more significant than anything else and not much more climactic either. Since pts are given out like hot cakes an individual point is 99% of the time not something to care about so any individual capture lacks oomph. This is different from say getting a point in a real sport because most sports don’t throw points away nilly willy like GW2 is.
In Fighting games even if you play with lives or something like a standard 3 rounds bout having only 3 shots or 2/3 lives makes each one very significant and you can feel the weight of the progression. With a lack of central focus in terms of observing the game it’s a hell of a lot of back and forth between the 3 pts and occassionally 1 of the peanut secondary objectives. It can be hard to keep track of everything and you want to, because that is all there is. If I was watching a moba they may have 3 lanes that split the focus but since each lane is just a means to the real focus at the end of them missing out on one isn’t as huge in reality since so long as the end focus hasn’t been touched the game is still merely just progressing forward. Like gaining yardage in a football game.
The focus being primarily on 3 circles for the actual progression of winning is mmmm holding the game back IMO and probably hurts player interest. Not that Conquest can’t work, but how pts are distributed and what is central being re-evaluated would likely rejuvenate interest. Pts are distributed way too frequently, neither Alliance Battles or Hero battles in gw1 crapped out pts this fast for any one node. If it’s not a player-kill, boss-kill or lord-kill it’s usually not a remotely exciting end.

3. Fairly chaotic, it’s easier to get a feel for the game playing it than with a birds eye view even despite having in truth a more limited viewpoint when playing the game. Who created what is not established very well in contrast to who is performing what. Or in other words Skill animation and effect persistence has a gap in terms of explanation. It’s easy to tell a Warrior is hundred blading it is not so easy to see say if there were two mesmers, who dropped the Chaos storm, especially if you just popped in from another cam or whose grenade poison field that is between two engis.

4. Lack of visible ICD’s for the players playing with them or the audience watching them. As a player this can be very frustrating, as a spectator this also would hurt as many trait effects do not have animations like skills do so when a Thief panic strikes the Guardian and that’s what leads to the kill you’d pretty much never know that was happening as a spectator or even could check if that was about to happen as a spectator. Unless you specifically checked his trait layout you couldn’t just look at the Thief himself and say “hey shoot he’s got Panic strike on recharge so that’s what happened” as a spectator and as that thief playing, you won’t consciously do it the majority of the time since you had no idea it was up or down. Same with Mesmer shatter recharge. Lack of information for both the spectator and the player who’s actually playing their own profession is annoying on both sides of the coin.

5. No cool-out area. Outside of jumping into Keg-brawl which is pretty much not acknowledged as existing anyways, their is no wind-down time so if you drop a couple hundred games in tpvp and you feel burnt out you can’t unwind or do so before reaching that burned out state. That’s part of the issue of having only 1 game mode. Sure Keg brawl and WvW are pvp but WvW has gear obstacles within it and different balance within the profession itself which may be unattractive. Keg brawl apparently doesn’t exist and receives basically no acknowledgement as even casual pvp.

S/P excels against bunched up targets. If this is a common reality for you take s/P however it is mutilated by retaliation.

I preffered Alliance Battles over World vs World, but then again Alliance battles didn’t follow PvE rules.
Bring up Fort Aspenwood.

Why would you expect a pvp update in this patch.
Some people.

Big dismissed the exact same trait investment when I suggested it earlier this month, Imo it was the best trait spec for S/D pre-patch and remains one of the best afterwards though Mug’s damage has been essentially halved.
It’s completely fine.
The dps of Dagger and Sword auto is essentially the same on a single target with Sword doing a hell of a lot more once cleave comes in to play. the Whole out damage FS the auto is nonsense. LS itself can certainly do 7k damage if you get bloodlust stacks up and much more consistently with the new Sins signet. Toss in Mug, Flame sigils and it’s a wrap.
The posted build can easily put out 9k+ in a flash while removing 2 boons and having Shadow return up for escape route purposes. Though I’m not a fan of Back-fighting it’s fully capable I assure you. The only thing missing is evade chaining :P.

Hate auto-facing with the fury off a thousand white-hot suns.

Corrosive traps + Trap Mastery.
Initial Strikes & Flanking Strikes.
Armor mantra + mantra mastery
Patience & Infusion of Shadow
Slowed Pulse & Pain response (srs)

FirstBlood.7359:

League of Legends doesn’t have much diversity either. For every position and hero there are only one or two optimal builds with minor deviations for different situations. Nobody plays Dominion and the only competitive gamemode has always been Summoner’s Rift. That said, a game can be successful without much diversity of playstyles and gamemodes.

The problem with GuildWars2’s sPvP from an esport perspective is, that the matches are not fun to watch.

1.) Too many combat effects: Even with few players fighting on a node, it’s impossible for a spectator to spot the smart and decisive actions. It’s exactly the opposite of “this well-placed Amumu ult just won the teamfight”.

2.) Linear score accumulation: Just recall all the desperate tries of the shoutcasters in the Tournament yesterday to keep the match interesting, even though it has already been over. After few minutes you can declare a winner, if the score difference is high enough. Comebacks are impossible.

Agree with this.

I didn’t feel how cluttered GW2 was until I tried watching the past few streams that have been going on as of late. So much information felt lost.

The scoring system is my biggest issue with Conquest. Slow tick is boring as hell to watch, and tbh it’s the least exciting aspect of Conquest when you play it. It lacks any climactic impact of it’s own accord. Adrenaline coming in really when a score is close and decided via boss-kill/player-kill/orb cap or maybe very rarily a buff cap (which will usually not be exciting to see). Rarely you’ll comeback with a lord rush which can often not be a practical option which is relatively unrewarding to go for but simultaneously feels undeveloped if defending.

Only further enhanced by map design where clocktower for instance has “walk all the way around” ledges on a crazy small circle or lack of practical cover-fire options at Windmill. Outside of that little joke of a hut so far removed from the point since all the good stuff blows up after a sneeze and never respawns.

Warriors and thieves need Deep Wound.

google

Actually, is alot easier to thief to get perma 25 might on them, they have the engineer HGH GM trait as a minor trait as well as another minor that gives might on dodges (15s), but there is no need since they are strong enough to 2-3 shot people wihtout having to sacrifice runes/traits/sigils

It’s not that we’re strong enough. It’s that
A) you use Signets which are short lived, and if you use boon duration for that effect it’s still marginal as a result of the large majority of our damage being power based, that and the duration can’t be permanently upkept.
B) You use venoms, ditching hte stun break unless you go S/x to have Shadow return as your stun break. However sword has no Damage over time conditions and Thief traits only offer Poison every 36-45s (Steal) or caltrops on dodge bleed, so if you do use that to have a stun break you still don’t output enough condition damage for it to actually matter. Doing so you’ll also typically lose out on Critical strikes. So without crit dmg, and generally poor DoT damage.
It’s a terrible trade off. The real benefit being if you’re sharing some venom might with some team mates, then you can potentially be putting up 40 stacks of might shared amongst the entire team. Otherwise you’re just crapping on damage and/or it’s not permanently upkeepable.

It’s not about “no need”
If you stack might as a thief, you’re generally A) crapping on your damage doing an incredibly short term burst (Signets) at the cost of all your utils and then getting your face wrecked.

The large benefit for Ele and Engi is that they deal Power and condi damage as well that stacking it is more sensible. Just popping venoms for might is a waste of venom effect given the recharge. Thief really doesn’t output mixed damage in the same light. Even in P/D, most of that tangible condi threat comes from caltrops.
It’s not about no need, it’s about no benefit.

jportell.2197:

ensoriki.5789:

Boon duration runes isn’t really an issue.
The trade offs for Might stacks are bad.
Thief can stack might on himself as well, but it’s either not a lot (about 8-9 stacks for him and party members in range) or not for very long (signet might)
The more he tries to extend length the less he’ll generally get out of it himself because the trade off’s are steep given what his profession offers.
An individual shouldn’t be getting 25 stacks or around 20 stacks of might on themself unless it is for a very brief moment of time.

For thieves that may be true… but for HGH engis… it is not… They get high might uptime lots of toughness from the rabid amulet and lots of vitality from the traitline plus condition removal…. Ele’s may get it from runes but they usually get It from combo fields… I could get 16 stacks on my ele w/o using runes just using sigils of battle and blast finishers.

The only qualm is that HGH applies 2 stacks of mights. Which between it and it’s toolbelt skill is 3 per Elixir skill slotted. Maybe drop it down to 1 stack of might on util and keep 1 stack of util on toolbelt and let the util might be shared to nearby allies. So at maximum it’ll actually be outputting more but individually giving less.

Boon duration runes isn’t really an issue.
For some profs might stacking doesn’t hurt you much and for others it does
Thief can stack might on himself as well using Venoms or Signets, but it’s either not a lot (about 8-9 stacks for him and party members in range) or not for very long (signet might). He can get a couple stacks through dodging but then he’s used up his endurance to purposefully stack might (which has obvious issues).
The more he tries to extend length the less he’ll generally get out of it himself because the trade off’s are steep given what his profession offers.

Likewise Might from the juggernaut trait on an Engineer doesn’t go that high by itself even with duration runes.

Boon duration isn’t really an issue for might stacking it’s the skills/traits that allow it to be applied.

Noctis Assassin.4035:

easiest way to beat a sword thief, watch for his inflitrator’s strike buff and remember where he ported from because he is bound to that spot for 15 seconds. If you are a necro, drop marks on his bound spot, punish him for porting back. Most thieves wouldn’t think to teleport back while dodging so its a free hit xD.

Or make porting back relatively fruitless by just moving to the teleport spot itself.
If you take the battle to his warp spot than as a Sword thief he has to walk away,or use Shadowstep to disengage. His other option is switch to bow and at that point he’s not using sword.
Also since Inf Strike can be interrupted. If he’s doing it in close quarters he can fear mark as his feet and if the thief warps in he loses Shadow return.
I’d presume most thieves he are fighting won’t be properly spacing themselves.

I saw more build diversity in gw1.
It was not restricted by this weapon system.
They said the weapon system would be easier to balance.
They’re doing poorly with it is how I feel.
If you don’t view weapons as important than balance is great.
If you do then it’s very poor.
I spend little time in-game now atm feeling very bored. This would be different if diversity wasn’t one of the main selling pts of the game as a MMO. If it was a different genre would certainly give a lot less of a dam but as it is, it is very disappointing.

This thread should be burned.

Check if Magnetic Aura was present from either an ally ele or your own runes.

Chicho Gosho.6507:

KarlaGrey.5903:

Forgot one thing, as some mentioned already:

- pets hitting like a truck while their masters are bunker-specced

But most pets can hit only 1 target. What’s the problem with the bigger damage compared to every mele weapon that have cleave attaks?

There is pet aoe.