Guild Wars 2

i like 8v8. people complain about the zerg far too much, as though there is no answer but to join it.

accept 8v8 for what it is & find a place to excel in the meta. for me, that is backcapping. it’s such a simple strategy & it destroys the zerg strat nearly every time. usually 1 person will realize there is a backcapper & break off from the zerg, that’s where my duels come from ( which also weakens the zerg moving to the next point ). if they do all come back to re-cap, i am buying time for my team across the map by fighting Xv1 & we still end up 2 nodes to 1.

you also get duels often with the extra map mechanics. 1v1s at the treb or peeling players off my lord’s gate ( niflhel not so much ).

altogether, i get plenty of duels, learn map control / map mobility & gain valuable experience playing survival against superior numbers, meeting up for team fights when they happen.

i get plenty of glory, except in the games where i am playing survival for the majority of the match. but my team inevitably wins these games even if my glory is lower because i create an imbalance that my team can capitalize on.

glory also takes a hit because i never wait for a point to turn if a teammate is there & it is uncontested. there is action happening somewhere else, why would i do nothing for 10 seconds when it does not benefit the team in the slightest? ( now think about this in context of these zergs moving around the points—every player past the first is entirely wasted potential for that team, giving me a better window for victory across the map )

my reward for playing is fighting people & winning the game; glory is frivolous & not really representative of anything—it’s not even representative of time investment.

the biggest cause of zerg mentality is chasing glory. it doesn’t matter what tweaks are made to glory, it will only affect the mindset of what the zerg is seeking. the benefit for me is it makes everyone’s movements highly predictable ( both my opponents & my team ) & it is not hard to outplay the majority of a team by yourself if you have decent movement.

the server gets interesting when there are more people willing to buck the zerg trend. these are usually servers with tourney players who are queuing 8v8 for kicks, & we have some great, close games that feel relatively balanced. it is these matches that convince me that 8v8 is competitive & too many players overlook the format simply because tourneys exist.

cannot wait for custom servers, omg. that will be like, the actual launch of GW2 PvP…being able to play casually on the same server with the same people over a longer period of time. a community, if you will.

i have spent 100% of my ranger time as beastmaster, r25 ( not saying i’m good, just giving my time investment in the spec ). my shortlist:

1. F2 instantly responsive ( abilities can still have cast times ( cast times need a balance pass, too many 2s casts for abilities not fitting that power level ), but the ability’s gotta go on the queue on my first key press ).

2. pets dodge with player. simple, effective solution to pet survivability that keeps the mechanic active & skill oriented.

that’s the fun of a metagame. what’s popular is usually not what is strongest, but what gives the most reward for the smallest effort.

bull’s rush > 100b can give great reward with 2 key presses. that doesn’t mean it is strongest.

keep soldiering on with classes that suit your style, tweak your builds, & yes, you need CC breaks. this is PvP, CC breaking is a universal constant.

victory should be the sole determining factor for rewards. coupled with the change that gives victory bonus to volunteers who swap, this is all that is necessary to promote playing to win over playing to farm.

regardless, people will complain about anything in search of some impossible ideal.

the solution will come with custom servers. only play on servers where the community plays to win, & all of a sudden glory doesn’t mean much any more. ( it doesn’t mean anything now, but ppl are fooled into thinking it does )

i don’t have the exact #s here, but with around 1100ish healing, my regen ticks for 277, & the tooltip reads about 4,600 for the regen portion of the ability.

4600 / 277 = 16.6. it is possible the tooltip lists what you would gain if you stand in the pool for the full duration of healing spring.

we just need private servers so our communities can start building homes. presently in hotjoin, most players will join a server, mess around till capricorn, then rotate to a new server. nobody knows anybody & nobody cares.

the PUG free tourney scene is even worse. so much hate as soon as a game turns south, which happens quickly when matched up against organized opponents. then it’s a string of "L2P"s & “ kitten scrub” flying back & forth. it’s not healthy or enjoyable; certainly not an environment conducive to growth or learning.

if we had regular servers to join that are run by various communities, we would form relationships much quicker & teamwork under any team size would skyrocket. i am not really judging anything until private servers are released.

i would call GW2 in a state of Live Beta. not like it matters, most people pre-purchased so they could play the beta anyhow, they just didn’t realize they were still playing it 2 months later.

i originally thought GW2 wouldn’t release until 2013 just from what i saw in beta. if they have good systems in place by february, that would seem about right to me.

2 extra things i would like to see regarding pets. When we dodge, pets should evade too, its pretty dumb when I dodge a treb shot or something but my pet just takes it and flies off the screen. Also I would like to see downed pets get rallied when we kill something, it would really help their survivability without just giving them passive AoE reduction, which I think would make things too easy.

2 great suggestions for pet improvement, i agree wholeheartedly. rallying makes a lot of sense.

pet F2 responsiveness needs to be fixed. if i press a button once, it should at least be queued up to go off after the pet’s next attack like any other ability i use on my own bar.

i like sword #1 how it is now. it doesn’t “root you”—it has a movement component similar to heartseeker that keeps you on top of your target. you can see how far you can travel with sword #1 by clearing your target & hitting an enemy with the blade arc. your character will leap forward quite a good distance on all 3 strikes. if they maintain this quality of the sword 1 attack while allowing us to move freely, more power to them. if i had my choice of one way or the other, i would keep it as it is.

long post inc. tl;dr: pets are better than commonly accepted.

i agree with durz. in my experience, hybrid play has been vastly more satisfying & successful in all areas of play. i play power / toughness / healing.

i have played 23 ranks of spvp as BM. pets are not weak, but they are sorely misunderstood. the recent addition of cast times on all tooltips has clarified a lot concerning pet abilities.

the biggest issue i hear constantly about pets is that they have to stop to attack. i believe the proper way to look at your pet is that they punish your opponent whenever they are not moving in a single direction. pets will still connect if the opponent is juking back & forth. which means if you are fighting on a control point, your opponent is going to have a much harder time avoiding attacks if they want to contest it. that is not accounting for cripple, stun, immobilize, kd, etc, that also score damage for the pet.

pets can hit very hard. my cats get far more killing blows than i do, & it is because i spent the time to learn how to set up their attacks appropriately. my jaguar can routinely put out 10k damage during stealth & the lynx pounce will often hit for 4k + bleeds on its own. not to mention my build keeps fury up on pet nearly 100% of the time, giving them an 85% crit rate. i realize this isn’t insta-gib dps, but this is also independent of anything i am doing myself.

i believe if they put through a change to make pets attack while moving, nearly all pet abilities would require damage nerfs, because BM specs would just wreck people. it would be way too easy to sic a pet on someone that throws up 1-2k auto attacks & just dodge around. ( the new phantasm mesmer, i suppose, except pets attack about 5 times for every 1 phantasm attack in addition to the other 3 abilities )

pet specs need to consider themselves as part of a group, inside a group. you have to work with your pet to make both of you successful.

always keep your pet near your side. that way you can sic your pet on ppl who focus you very quickly. this is really key, imo. if someone is attacking you, they cannot dodge your pet if you are fighting right beside him, & you can reposition yourself constantly through evades & dodges to give your pet better attack angles. pets will also be in proper range for buff support / condi wiping ( please don’t forget that SoRenewal is Group Support!! if your teammate is being assisted on or cc chained, have pet in range & Renewal will cleanse them. if a necro uses epidemic, Renewal will counter it. )

bind your “Pet Return” & “Pet Attack” keys to something comfortable, you will need to use them constantly ( these commands are instantly responsive ).

time your cripples with pet abilities to guarantee they land. ( eg. shortbow 4 + lynx pounce will keep opponent within the 600 range of pounce for the 2s cast time & will put up 6 stacks of bleed )

when first starting to learn how to work with your pet, i would suggest using Birds. their autoattack has a 300 range instead of 130, so they give some leniency when you’re working on timing. they also have the same precision as cats with higher vitality, so they work great with +30% crit dmg trait.

to me, the pet is what makes ranger different from every other class. so when looking for that thing which defines us & sets us apart in our own niche, it is the pet. if you don’t like the pet or have no patience for it, best choose another profession, imo.